Chuck vs the Accidental Benedict Arnold
by DrMcDuck
Summary: Everything's different-new jobs, new covers-but everything's somehow still the same-same enemies, same mission. Add new relationship status with the same watchers: too complicated, even for Team Chuck? Follows "Chuck vs. the Watcher," Chuck/Sarah.
1. Chapter 1

Chuck vs. the Accidental Benedict Arnold

Everything's different (new jobs, new covers), but everything's somehow still the same (same enemies, same mission). Add new relationship status with the same watchers: too complicated, even for Team Chuck? Follows "Chuck vs. the Watcher," Chuck/Sarah.

Rating: T, for sporadic use of strong language and occasional interesting romantic situations.

Spoilers: Through 2.07, "Chuck vs. the Fat Lady," but I completely ignore any of the issues brought up with the Jill story arc. Shameless, I know.

_A/N: Back by demand, ladies and gentlemen. Why there was a demand in the first place, I'll never know, but it's apparently there. Thanks to all who sent PMs over the past few months asking if I'd given any more thought to writing this story—aside from making me chuckle, they forced me to keep considering the feasibility and efficacy of a sequel-to-the-sequel. While the story would have (most likely) materialized down the road, a well-timed PM from __**jagged1**__ last month made the story come together sooner rather than later, and merits a special mention and thank you._

_This story is the third in an arc that started with "Chuck vs. _Sweet Home Alabama_" and continued with "Chuck vs. the Watcher." Both stories are located here on FF. "Chuck vs. the Accidental Benedict Arnold" may make more sense if you read both of those first, but the choice, as always, is yours. Updates may be a little slower and more sporadic than usual for me, but I'm going to _try_ my very best to post a new chapter within two weeks of the previous chapter. It may turn out that I can update more frequently (…or less…), but it's hard to say right now._

_Finally, the disclaimers: I read the chapter over a few times, but typos and errors undoubtedly slipped through, despite my efforts to catch them all. Sincerest apologies for them—they'll be fixed as soon as they're found. Also, italicized sentences, or several italicized words in a row, tend to denote a character's thoughts. Finally, I don't own _Chuck_, because if I did, update frequency wouldn't be a problem._

_-.-.-.-_

**Day 10 of virus release: Sunday**

Cans. Lots of cans. And plates. There were quite a few of those, too.

That's all Sarah could immediately remember about the previous night as she stirred in bed. A meager amount of information for anyone to remember, really, but especially for a spy. Yet, she wasn't bothered by it.

Why wasn't she bothered by it?

She burrowed deeper under the covers and took a deep breath. With that breath, its aroma distinctive, she realized why she wasn't bothered. Her eyes opened to narrow slits, and a brief glimpse of the infamous _Tron _poster on the wall confirmed it.

She was at Chuck's. It was Sunday morning…_early_ Sunday morning: the alarm clock said it was 6:17am. No, wait, 6:18am; the clock's digits changed as she glanced at it. She couldn't remember the last time she'd slept so soundly, and fully intended to enjoy an hour or two more of high-quality sleep before deciding whether to worry about her inability to instantly recall every detail of the previous night.

Rolling toward the center of the bed, her eyes curiously opened when she registered the distinct lack of body heat radiating from the far side of it.

Chuck wasn't there. With how cold his side of the bed was, he'd obviously been gone for some time. And he was definitely there when she went to bed last night. That much she did remember.

Brows furrowed and grogginess dissipating, she rolled back toward her side of the bed and sat up in the same, fluid motion. She paused for a beat once she'd effortlessly perched on the edge of the bed.

Something didn't feel right.

Completely alert, Sarah quickly took stock of her surroundings. The Morgan door was still closed and locked, the blinds still shut, the bedroom door still shut, and the grape soda can still attached to the wall above the nightstand. She could hear the faint murmur of talking from the front room through the door.

For an early Sunday morning, nothing seemed out of place, other than Chuck's absence.

Still, something didn't feel right.

Sighing, she looked the room over again, more carefully than before. She'd learned long ago to trust her instincts.

She noticed something new this time—both of their cell phones were missing. They weren't on the nightstand, where they'd been tossed the night before. Noting the peculiar irregularity, Sarah allowed her eyes to continue around the rest of the room. Her evaluation screeched to a halt when her gaze reached Chuck's desk. His computer was missing.

If _that_ didn't constitute an irregularity, she didn't know what would.

She needed to figure out where Chuck went. Then, she could figure out where his computer went. And she'd figure it out in that order.

A weapon of some sort would be a good idea. Being Chuck's bed, not hers, she was nearly positive that there wasn't a knife the size of Manitoba underneath her pillow. She didn't remember stashing one there the night before, and sure enough, when she checked—no Manitoba-sized knife.

Getting to her feet, Sarah's eyes snapped to Morgan's grape soda can. That knife would work.

Extracting the metal knife from the aluminum can ended up being a far quieter endeavor than she would have guessed. Feeling better at having a weapon, Sarah crossed to the door and opened it enough to see the surrounding hallway.

From what she could see, it was empty in both directions. The detail, strangely, made her feel more uneasy.

Carefully, she opened the door the rest of the way, stepped out into the hall, and headed toward the kitchen, can-impaling knife at the ready. The murmured talking she'd heard from the bedroom had stopped, and the resulting silence was more than a little eerie.

It was official. Something _definitely_ didn't feel right.

Slowing as the hallway opened into the kitchen, she finally caught a glimpse of Chuck. He was standing at the dining room table, facing away from the kitchen, and looked like he had his arms raised in front of him.

Just as she was about to step into the kitchen, Chuck's frantic voice pierced the silence.

"No no no no, there's no need for that. We're adults, right? Let's just be _calm_, OK? Just, no, don't don't don't!"

The piercing sound of a gun being cocked punctuated Chuck's sentence before the actual gun appeared out of nowhere, pointed at Chuck's forehead. A split second later, Sarah felt the cold metal of another gun at the base of her skull. The gun's owner quickly confiscated her knife before giving her a not-so-gentle shove into the kitchen, bringing the dimly lit front room into view.

She saw that the enemy contingent numbered three: the person holding Chuck at gunpoint, the person holding her at gunpoint (wow, lots of people were being held at gunpoint…), and the person calmly sitting across from Chuck at the table. Since he was the only one sitting down, Sarah guessed he was the one in charge.

Why did the person in charge always sit down? Did it enhance his prestige?

Table-sitter had a very ho-hum expression on his face as he fiddled with his wristwatch, adjusting the time. He reminded her a little bit of Casey—table-sitter looked as if this were a perfectly normal occurrence for a Sunday morning. A morning house call, followed by pancakes. Or waffles. But he seemed like more of a pancake guy (maybe because he reminded her of Casey).

Only when he noticed Sarah's entrance did the ho-hum expression dissipate from table-sitter's face. A snake-like smile replaced it.

Fulcrum. It had to be.

Table-sitter stood up and took a few steps around the edge of the table. He spoke with little preamble.

"You have 5 seconds to agree to our conditions, or else..."

The man deliberately trailed off his sentence and glanced in Chuck's direction to make his threat before meeting Sarah's now-blistering gaze again.

"Five…"

Chuck had done a good job cleaning up last night. The kitchen counters were completely clear…and thoroughly devoid of any potential weapons or projectiles.

"…four…"

Chuck probably knew she was behind him, even though he couldn't see her. It made coordinating any sort of plan through non-verbal communication impossible.

"…three…"

Chuck would benefit from her saying something _pretty_ soon. Her inability to communicate her feelings, though, was rendering her mute; words refused to materialize, despite her strong desire to speak.

"…two…"

Chuck's gunpoint person set his shooting stance while table-sitter continued to count down to zero. She still couldn't speak—this situation really did not look like it was going to end well.

"…one…"

Chuck's face wasn't visible. Looking on the bright side, it was one less thing to haunt her in the years to come.

Table-sitter didn't bother to say "zero" aloud. Perfectly in time with the established cadence, Chuck's gunpoint person pulled the trigger instead.

The sound of the gunshot seemed to reach her in slow motion. Once it did, however, she instinctively reacted…

…and sat bolt upright in bed, poised to dismember the nearest human being. Her heart thundered and chest heaved, racing in time with her eyes as they bounced rapidly around the bedroom.

There was no human being in sight. Only Chuck's TV stared back at her. She fell back onto the bed, kicking away blankets while running her hands through her hair.

_What the HELL was that?_

Nightmares were to be expected for spies—occupational hazard. Yet, Sarah couldn't remember the last time she'd had a nightmare of such remarkably frightening magnitude.

She also couldn't remember the last time one of her nightmares had started so loopy and gotten progressively loopier.

_Manitoba-sized knife? The ridiculous "lots of people being held at gunpoint" observation?_ She took a few calming breaths._ And, _really_, the internal waffle-pancake monologue! Or the sitting-prestige comment!_

She could do without such dreams. Her conscious alone could instill enough fear and worry about her ability to keep Chuck safe without her subconscious pitching in. Fulcrum gunning for Chuck, not because of _him_ being the Intersect, but because of _her _new job, weighed heaviest on her mind.

Their new relationship status and everything it implied, complements of her "a-ha!" moment the previous night, came in a close second. At the very least, it certainly intensified the normal sort of fear she felt at the thought of Chuck being captured by Fulcrum.

She let out a small sigh and studied the ceiling.

It would be an understatement to say that the dream's timing left a lot to be desired.

_I'm not thinking about any of this now_, she thought_._ _I'm going back to bed, because it's Sunday and it's only…, _she twisted her head to squint at the alarm clock, _6:17 in the morning. Way too early._

A beat passed before she twisted around to examine the clock more closely.

It was 6:17am. The clock clicked to 6:18am as she looked at it. Her left hand stretched out to check Chuck's side of the bed as she stared in disbelief.

_Coincidence, Walker. Very, very large coincidence…_

She held onto the belief that it was coincidence until the only thing her left hand found was cool sheets and air. Quickly sitting up, she checked the nightstand—both of their cell phones were missing—and then the desk—Chuck's computer was missing.

Murmuring also could be heard from the front room.

Something didn't feel right.

_Oh, no. No no no. Out of all the times to get déjà vu, not this time…_

Not wanting to lose time rooting through yesterday's clothes for a fresh throwing knife, Sarah snatched the grape soda can off the wall and extracted the knife after leaping out of bed, clad only in her usual borrowed t-shirt and boy shorts. Opening the bedroom door completely, though cautiously, revealed an empty hallway, same as her dream.

_This can't be happening. I'm imagining it._

She took the time to investigate the far end of the hallway, near Ellie and Awesome's room, and the bathroom. Both were empty.

By the time she crept back to Chuck's door, the silence was the eerie sort present in her dream.

By the time she was about to step into the kitchen, Chuck spoke, with his arms raised in front of him.

"No no no no, there's no need for that. We're adults, right? Let's just be _calm_, OK? Just, no, don't don't don't!"

Remembering all too well how things played out before, Sarah somersaulted into the kitchen, knife at the ready to skewer the Fulcrum agents in the front room. Just as she landed in a perfect three-point stance in the middle of the kitchen archway, eyes furiously sweeping the front room, Chuck snatched his cell phone from the crook of his neck and sent it skittering across the table, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.

The sound of the skittering cell phone was precisely where the sound of the cocking gun had been in her dream.

Tensing up at the coincidence—and nearly launching her knife at where the agent holding Chuck at gunpoint had stood in her dream—she checked her throwing arm for a second longer while she completed her visual sweep of the front room and hallway.

Except for Chuck, the front room was empty. A glance over at the hallway showed it was empty, as it had been seconds before when she checked it. There was no Fulcrum agent sneaking up behind her.

In the time it had taken her to finish checking over the front room, Chuck had collapsed into the chair behind him with a sigh. Standing back up, she closely scrutinized the room's angular shadows as she walked to where he was sitting, head in his hands. Needing tactile assurance that he was absolutely fine, she hesitantly threaded her fingers through his hair, relaxing slightly when he didn't disappear. He jumped at her touch, clearly not expecting someone sneaking behind him, but let out a content-sounding sigh once he registered who it was and leaned back against her.

"I'm so sorry, did I wake you up?" he asked quietly, tilting his head back to look at her.

_Well, not technically_. About to give a non-reply, she was preempted by Chuck's cell phone ringing. She involuntarily sucked in a breath as a barely perceptible chill crawled down her spine.

The ringing precisely coincided with the gunshot in her dream.

_I don't know what's more bothersome_, she thought, instinctively searching the room again for threats, _the fact that the damn phone rang _period_, or the fact that I can somehow sense that it occurred at the same time as…_ Her train of thought abruptly stopped once she realized where, exactly, it was going.

Having lunged for his phone to silence it, it wasn't until Chuck settled back in the chair and glanced back up at Sarah that he noticed her eyes darting around the room. The eye sweep was the sort she performed during missions…and it was more than a little disconcerting when performed in the front room. _Did I miss something?_

"Hey, you OK?"

Hearing the concern in his voice, she dragged her attention back to him. Ensnaring her fingers more securely in his curls—he was still there, and absolutely fine—she let out the breath she'd been unconsciously holding.

_See: COINCIDENCE. There's no one here. Relax already._

"You know," she said as lightly as she could while the tension slowly ebbed away, "I thought you were kidding about the whole not sleeping together thing."

Before he could stop himself, Chuck let out a groan and let his head thump to the nearest surface—the dining room table.

"You and me both. My employer apparently thought I was serious. I don't think they believe in weekends."

Lifting his head, he grandly gestured to the table and TV. Papers were scattered around the dining room table, and from what she could tell, the TV was hooked up to Chuck's computer, currently displaying lots and lots of code.

"Your phone's been ringing, too," he added, fishing it out of his pajama pants pocket and holding it up for her to grab, "but I figured one of us should get to sleep in."

_So, his cell phone and computer were missing because he moved out here to work, and when my phone started ringing, he grabbed that as well. All because he wanted me to sleep. Unbelievable. _A small, incredulous smile broke across her face as she lightly lobbed the knife the short distance onto the table, freeing up a hand to take her phone from Chuck.

"Is that who you were talking to just now—someone from work?" she asked while expertly tapping her phone's display. _That would certainly explain the hand motions. _With her attention mostly on the phone, she didn't immediately register the nervous stutter in his voice.

"Uh, what? Oh, um, yeah. Work."

In the few hours of sleep she'd managed to get—party cleanup had lasted until well after midnight, after which they'd both fallen into bed, exhausted—she'd missed five calls. The numbers weren't familiar ones, either. Three voicemails waited. _What the hell—I don't think I've ever had FIVE missed calls before 7am on a Sunday. _It was her turn to groan and thump her head against the nearest flat surface while squeezing her eyes shut.

In her case, it was Chuck's forehead. She didn't realize it until he whispered, his voice so very close. When he did, the stutter in his previous response made much more sense.

"I'm sorry, wa…was that a _knife?_" Even whispering, his voice was an octave normal than higher. "Did you just casually deposit a KNIFE on the table? What'd you think was going to happen out here!"

Eyes snapping open, Sarah lifted her head enough to make eye contact with him. One good look at her slightly haunted expression had Chuck haphazardly pushing his chair to one side as he stood and spun to face her.

He spoke in hushed tones, mindful of the surveillance. "_What_ is going on?"

"Chuck…"

"No, seriously." He took a step closer, yawning into his shoulder before continuing. "Did I miss something?"

Crossing her arms over her chest with a sigh, his persistent concern was enough to prompt a simplified, halting version of the truth.

"You, your phone, and your computer were all missing. What was I _supposed_ to think?"

He obviously hadn't thought of it that way at all, because once he did, his eyes went wide and hands came up to punctuate the sincerity of his words.

"Oh, oh crap, no, nothing like…no, _no_! I mean, I didn't even th…I suppose it wo…" He suddenly stopped talking before blurting the first full sentence that came to mind. "I'll leave a note next time."

"A note?" A relaxed smirk finally crept across her face. "That's not really how this works."

"How _does_ it work, then?" he thought aloud, lack of sleep affecting the functionality of his normal brain-to-mouth filter.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. _Did he really just say that? _Smirk transforming into something a bit more devious, she moved in to kiss the sleepy look off his face before hesitating, sudden shyness overtaking her. _Oh my God, this is real, not because we have to, or because we're being ordered to, or because Ellie's watching, but because we w…_

Chuck's lips brushed against hers before disappearing, moving her focus from her very-Chuckesque thoughts to the man himself, who had noticed the shift in her demeanor and tentatively finished what she had been about to start. He was now watching her carefully, brows slightly raised, waiting for a response of any kind. Telegraphed across his less-sleepy face were the same thoughts and realizations she just had—yes, if what she said yesterday wasn't a dream and she'd meant it, they could really do this for _them_, not feel guilty about it, and they'd work it out as they went along.

Shyness mixed with her previous deviousness, and became infused with the knowledge that she'd meant what she said—even if she had _no_ idea how they were going to make this work or if it was _truly_ a good idea. Before she could stop herself again, she leaned forward to gently kiss him back, hands coming up to cup his face and relaxing into it when he wrapped his arms around her and, just as gently, began to kiss her back.

As things slowly heated up—_And I thought our making-out-on-demand kisses were dangerous. If things had ever gone like this in the middle of a mission…_—Sarah trailed her hands from his face down to his chest. Goosebumps unexpectedly spread all over, producing simultaneous shivers for both of them and a realization from Sarah.

…_oh my God, he's still shirtless. How did I miss _that_?_

She remembered that part of last night, now: it had been her one, half-asleep, mumbled request before he'd crawled into bed last night—no shirt. Being as tired as he was, he'd taken it off without protest or embarrassment before falling on the bed and passing out as soon as his head touched the pillow.

It had been a great request, she'd decided last night, since she hadn't gotten to enjoy the similar shirtlessness Friday night. Now, in the light of the morning, she didn't think it wasn't a great request—it was outright _brilliant_.

He seemed to remember his state of undress the same time she did, because things started escalating much more quickly after that. Sarah found herself turning to lean on the table before her knees decided to give out. Breaking their latest searing kiss with a surprised gasp as he kissed up her jaw before settling on ravaging her neck, she buried her face in his shoulder while reminding herself to breathe.

Just as he shifted so one of his hands came to rest on the small of her back under her shirt, with the other resting on the outside of her bare thigh, gently tapping some rhythm, Chuck's phone started ringing. Lacing her fingers through his hair to prevent him from even thinking about going anywhere, she breathlessly spoke.

"Ignore i…" The rest of the sentence was quickly eclipsed by a moan as he tapped the hand resting on her leg a bit faster.

"Ignore what?" he gasped in a ragged voice before catching her lips for another kiss in response.

The call finally went to voicemail, silencing his phone just in time for hers to come to life with a call of its own. Neither of them paused to contemplate answering it, the most recent kiss resulting in a blistering look and a mutual decision to stumble toward the couch.

Tumbling over its arm, Sarah's full weight landed squarely on Chuck's prone form, causing eyes to dangerously flicker and soon had Sarah playing with the drawstrings on Chuck's pajama pants. In an attempt to counter her progress, Chuck had no sooner flipped them over, rolling his hips against hers, when a series of firm, short raps on the front door caused both to freeze.

Willing the interruption to be imaginary, the second, more firm set of knocks seconds later dispelled that notion entirely.

"I don't suppose we ignore _that_, too?" he asked with forced levity, shifting some of his weight off her and resting his forehead on her shoulder as he fought to catch his breath.

A third set of knocks sounded. Whoever it was, the person at the door wasn't going anywhere.

_If it's Morgan, I swear to God, Chuck's best friend or not, I _will_ end him._ Eyes smoldering, her answer came out in a dangerously low tone as she gave Chuck a shove off the couch, leaving little room for misunderstanding.

"Answer it. Fast."

Groaning and grumbling, Chuck half-jogged to the front door and peered through the eyehole. Seeing who was on the other side, he rolled his eyes and tried to even out his breathing before tugging the door open a little bit.

John Casey stood on the other side, with his excessively cheerful I-know-we're-being-watched face in place.

"Hi, Chuck. Sorry to bother you so early, but is Sarah here?"

Chuck ground his teeth. _WORST TIMING EVER._

"Yeah, she is, but she's…asleep," he lied. "Can it wait?"

"Not really." Casey tried his best to look sympathetic, but the resulting look was far from it after he noticed Chuck concealing half of his body behind the door.

Sarah silently appeared next to him, blanket from the back of the couch loosely wrapped around her lower half. Mustering as much pleasantness as she possibly could, she joined Chuck in peering around the door and addressed Casey.

"Morning, John!" _I swear, if you did this on purpose, John Casey…_ "Thanks again for all your help yesterday. Did you enjoy yourself?"

"I did, thank you. Can I borrow you for a minute?"

…_what? _Her brain shifted from girlfriend mode into agent mode, though not exactly willingly with Chuck inches away. _Why does Casey want to talk to me outside? Maybe because_ _Chuck isn't supposed to know Casey's NSA…but Casey and I aren't supposed to be talking shop. This can't be good._

"Sure," she replied, for lack of a better answer. "Hold on a minute."

Reaching behind Chuck to push the door shut, she whispered to him once it latched.

"Before you ask, I have no clue what he wants. I don't know if it's cover-related or real. I'll be _right_ back, alright?"

Opening the door and stepping out before Chuck could respond or tempt her to reconsider, she fashioned the blanket into an impromptu sarong as Casey stood patiently.

"What is it, John?"

Casey blatantly examined the windows to make sure Chuck wasn't peeking from one of them before taking small steps parallel to the front door, away from the apartment. Sarah pulled the door shut as Casey started talking with a slight smirk.

"Sorry to wake you up…"

_Ha, ha. Funny, Casey._ Biting the inside of her lip, she kept the curious expression on her face as the NSA agent stopped at the small archway leading into and out of the courtyard next to Casa Bartowski.

"…but I glanced out my window and saw these folks snooping outside of Chuck's place." Casey turned to face her, innocently raised his eyebrows while folding his arms, and nodded once toward the archway. "They friends of yours?"

_WHAT?_

Sarah quickly took two large steps and found a series of handcuffed, roughed-up ninjas sitting in between the two archways, up against one of the walls. With their blank expressions and the vacant way they were staring at the opposite wall, they weren't amateurs—worrisome in itself, but not excessively so. It meant they weren't part of the normal surveillance team that'd been present in the courtyard for the past week or so. _Besides, the normal team only has one person in the courtyard at a time, not…_

Sarah's skin crawled once she registered how many ninjas were against the wall.

…_three of them. Oh. My. God._

Her dream. She'd forgotten about it, courtesy of how her morning had drastically improved. It was apparently was anything _but _a dream.

Her instincts had been correct—she'd learned to trust them long ago.

She felt Casey's eyes on her, waiting for some sort of response, unaware of her scary case of spy déjà vu. Planting her hands on her hips, Sarah forced in a deep breath and took a few steps toward the fountain before letting it out slowly.

_There goes the morning. Focus, damn it, and think. We need a plan…_

_-.-.-.-  
_

While Sarah's unwelcome metaphorical bucket of ice water was furnished by Casey, Chuck was getting his from another source.

_Oh my God, what is _up_ with people today!_, he thought with the sort of tired exasperation only possible after multiple nights with little sleep. _First the guy from work, and now…this one. _He should have just ignored Sarah's phone. That much was now clear.

But, no, he'd curiously picked it up when it started ringing (yet _again_) while she was outside. The number wasn't familiar to him, but it'd already called three times this morning. After a brief moment of hesitation, Chuck had decided to answer—four calls before 7am suggested something fairly substantial. If Sarah was pissed at him for answering her phone without asking…well, he'd figure something out.

While he'd anticipated the potential pissed ex-spy on his end of the phone when he answered, he hadn't anticipated the _actual_ pissed ex-spy on the other end. As a result, he was currently half-sitting, half-standing on the corner of the table as he dealt with a furious Abigail Knox. She clearly wasn't used to being unable to get in touch with her employees at the drop of a hat. Chuck suppressed a yawn while wielding his best placating-an-irate-customer voice as he tried to calm Abigail down.

"Yes, I will make _sure_ she checks her voicemail and calls you when she gets back, I promise. … No, I'm not sure where she went—she just said 'out' and left her phone h… … Ab…Abigail, I answered her phone because this is the fourth time this number's called this morni…"

Abigail cut him off in mid-sentence to launch into another tirade. _God, please please _please_ let Sarah be back soon…_ Glancing toward the front door to reinforce his silent plea, he was surprised to see her leaning against the door—he hadn't noticed her come in. Letting out a sigh of relief, he interrupted the still-ranting Abigail as Sarah's head snapped toward him at the sound of his sigh—she evidently hadn't noticed him, either.

"Actually, I think I just heard the front door. Let me go check, hold on."

Quickly clamping a hand over the phone's mouthpiece—_I think Abigail might try to climb through it_—his eyes went wide with incredulity as he mouthed "OH MY GOD" to Sarah, thrusting the phone in her direction. With a slight tilt of his head at the object in his hands, Chuck slid off the table as she silently acknowledged his request and crossed the room.

"It's Abigail," he whispered once she was close enough, "and she is _FREAKING_ out about something. I mean really REALLY freaking out."

Sarah gave him a sharp look before muttering, "You've got to be kidding me" under her breath and extracting her phone from Chuck's two-handed grip, putting it to her ear and speaking without hesitation. Stoically taking in Abigail's ire, Chuck did a double-take as he noticed Sarah's mood for the first time since coming back inside, its haunted, serious sobriety starkly contrasting with what it had been before.

The longer he looked at her expression, the more he could feel uncertainty and worry cloud his own. _Something's wrong_, he realized with sickening clarity. _I wonder if Casey heard something from Beckman. Or if he found out something. _Watching Sarah pointedly stare into space as she tersely gave Abigail a one-word answer, another possibility came to mind._ …or Casey saw us on the surveillance, said something, and now she's reconsidering…_

It made him want to throw his arms up in the air. He settled for scrunching his eyes shut and rotating his neck around in a slow circle. _Of course, this would be so much easier if we could actually _talk_. Then I wouldn't have to guess which one it is._

Rubbing his eyes before opening them again, he was surprised to see Sarah looking at him with concern; only vestiges of her previous expression remained. He couldn't stop his eyebrows from shooting up, conveying his rampant confusion and the question on his mind—_What?_

A sad smile crossed Sarah's face as she relaxed and responded far more calmly to something Abigail asked before giving him a lingering kiss. Resting her forehead on his chest after, she continued her much more civil-sounding conversation with Abigail without missing a beat. Surprised, it took Chuck a minute before his brain caught up. _…so_, probably_ not the last one_, he thought as he wrapped his arms around her_. That's helpful._

Chuck felt, rather than saw, Sarah let out a small sigh after she finished talking to Abigail and hung up. She made no effort to move, and seemed to work multiple things out mentally before picking up her head.

"Looks like your employer isn't the only one who doesn't believe in weekends. I've got to go into work for a little bit." She gave him a forced smile that didn't reach her eyes—she was staging the conversation for possible surveillance. Judging by what her eyes were _really_ saying, she needed him play along…and to trust her, among other things.

"Your esteemed leader did sound especially cheerful this morning..." he mused aloud, acknowledging her silent message with a quick eyebrow wiggle.

Coughing to control the unanticipated almost-laugh, she shook her head with a slight grin before giving him a peck on the cheek. As she did so, she subtly angled them away from the front window to conceal what she whispered to him a second later.

"Abigail was calling about Reed's office—Quentin discovered the break-in this morning. Type out how you covered up Casey's mission while I get dressed."

_Ha, well, Abigail going ballistic makes much more sense in light of _that_ little tidbit_. Giving Sarah a small squeeze of acknowledgment, Chuck dropped his arms and headed toward the kitchen. _Oh, we're _definitely_ going to need some coffee today_, he thought as he yawned again, _because this whole awake-one-minute-and-crashing-the-next thing is going to get super old, super fast. I used to be able to pull this next-to-no sleep stuff off without a problem. Maybe it's old age or somet…_

"Hey, do me a favor?"

Her tone stopped him in mid-stride as he spun on his heel to face her, caffeine sources and rambling inner monologues forgotten. It wasn't her fake conversation tone—it was her real one, the one he rarely heard. Taking in her conflicted look, Chuck couldn't quite tell if he should move closer or farther away from her…and accordingly decided not to move at all.

"Anything, you know that."

"Stay here until I get back?"

His face undoubtedly displayed his confusion as he opened and shut his mouth once before tilting his head to look at her quizzically_. I know I'm supposed to be playing along with something, but where did that come from? _

"Wait…what? Why?"

"Just…" The rest of the sentence refused to come out, prompting an aggravated sigh. She was never good at communicating when feelings were involved. Slowly walking into the kitchen, she stopped right in front of him and tried again, choosing her words carefully and forcing them out. "Just…humor me. Please. I need to check something."

About to ask why again, she gave him a long look, filled with everything she couldn't say aloud. Chuck found himself nervously swallowing a few times before hesitantly nodding his head.

"Alright, yeah. I'll stay put today."

Her eyes fiercely narrowed, his acquiescence coming too easily. On the verge of angrily reiterating her point, she was derailed when Chuck mouthed one word: "Promise." Waiting a moment to gauge her reaction, he quirked an eyebrow before tentatively opening his arms for a hug.

"God," he muttered quietly into her shoulder as she immediately took him up on his offer, burying her face in his neck, "and here I thought our day couldn't get any more interesting…"

Her quiet, muffled reply, preceded by a rueful chuckle, qualified as the understatement of the day.

"You have no idea."

_-.-.-.-_

A minute or two after Sarah's understatement, one of the courtyard's large garbage barrels randomly tipped over. An individual clad in a mismatched black outfit tumbled out, and didn't hesitate before bolting for the courtyard exit like someone possessed.

Mere seconds after the individual had cleared the apartment complex, a serious and resolute ex-Agent Walker emerged from Casa Bartowski, fully dressed and armed with Chuck's explanation and requisite cup of coffee. Casey, waiting patiently by his apartment door as she requested immediately after her spy déjà vu moment, gave a small grunt as Sarah coolly walked past him. Once they had entered his apartment and shut the door, she described her tentative plan to keep everyone's new cover intact while adjusting for Fulcrum's persistence.

By 8am, Casey had her first plan of the day in effect. At that point, Sarah was already across town at Reed Associates, enacting Plan #2 while efficiently assessing the cause of the break-in. Unbeknownst to any member of Team Chuck, a new email appeared in an inbox a few hours later, begging to be read:

_Marilyn_,

_Thanks for the report. Your general plan of action sounds good. However, you're right: I don't believe Sarah Walker is truly done with the CIA, nor do some of the others I talked to this morning. (Even though Abigail is convinced, which shocks me.) We'll have to see it to believe it. In the meantime, keep an equal amount of surveillance on Walker and Casey, if you can._

_Are you sure Walker and Casey being in LA together is a large coincidence? From what you've said, I believe you, but a few of the others were shocked that there was no official connection between the two. I would go so far to say they were disappointed. Do you mind looking into this a little more, just to make sure?_

_A few of us are flying out to LA tomorrow for a bunch of meetings. I'd love to get together for coffee or something to catch up, and the others would like to meet you to talk about Walker and Casey. Are you available at all tomorrow for a meet-up?_

_All the best,_

_Tim_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I don't believe I've mentioned how awesome you readers and reviewers are lately. Allow me to do so: you're all quite awesome. Far more awesome than I am. Got this chapter done much sooner than I thought I could, and decided to post it now in honor of your awesomeness. Thank yous from the last chapter will be on their way shortly (because my negative awesomeness levels meant either writing the chapter or writing thank yous…and the chapter won)._

_Disclaimers still apply._

-.-.-.-

**Day 10: Sunday**

"Dude, I'm not going to lie. I saw my life flash before my eyes when your lady did that thing…you know…the thing with the knife. It was like she was really going to kill me, you know?"

Prior to Morgan's astute observation, Chuck's feet were resting on his desk and he was leaning back in his chair. After Morgan's observation, Chuck's feet tumbled to the ground as he almost choked on a bite of Sizzling Shrimp. Coughing violently, Chuck spun to look at Morgan, who was sitting on the bed playing Xbox 360, oblivious to the fact that he was practically coughing up a lung.

"Uh, Morgan, she _was_ about to kill you."

"Oh, right, right, I know—she was 'about to kill me,'" Morgan distractedly said, managing air quotes with the controller in his hand. "We're totally on the same page now. That's why I brought over the Shrimp. Peace offering, remember?"

_Peace offering without _knocking, Chuck thought with one last cough before taking a sip of water. Morgan had popped through his bedroom window late in the afternoon, determined to convince Sarah to forgive him, as Chuck's best friend, for all his…less than well-timed actions over the past week or so. _Never mind the fact that if Sarah hadn't been called off to work, Morgan would have _probably_ walked right in on…_

Another cough or two popped out at the thought of what _probably_ would've been happening—it made Morgan's previous walk-in moment during the engagement party look ridiculously tame. Chuck forced his mind to skip over the particulars to get to the conclusion: _…yeah. Death. Definitely._

Instead, Morgan had walked in on nap time once the calls from Symantec died down. Chuck felt more human after his far-too-short nap, and, really, he had enjoyed spending the day with Morgan…

…but the day was over. The sun had left hours ago. Morgan hadn't. And he probably didn't intend to leave anytime soon, either—Sarah still wasn't back yet, and he'd vowed to wait until she returned to demonstrate how serious he was about making amends.

Morgan's focus on bonding and rehearsing his apology over and over and _over_ again made it impossible for Chuck to get any work finished...the work that would have been done by now if Morgan hadn't overstayed his welcome. The work that Chuck needed to finish so he could sleep tonight. The work that Chuck had been dragged out of bed for at 2am. That work.

_I still don't get why they called me about this_, he thought—it didn't warrant a phone call at an ungodly hour, in his opinion. _The virus is harmless…even if the way they were talking about fixing it was _not_ smart. _He'd said so several times, and the fight Sarah had overheard that morning had been over the right way to code the fix—Chuck had ended up being right. _They definitely don't pay me enough to wake me up in the middle of the night on a Sunday to play referee..._

Thoughts interrupted by the computer beeping, Chuck pivoted back to look a section of code that was blinking at him, remembering to responding to Morgan's question while he did.

"Yes, peace offering, I know. And it's a very good peace offering—I approve, in fact. Any problem can be solved with Sizzling Shrimp, and I think if you say what you've been rehearsing _repeatedly_ all day, Sarah will be cool with it. But, sinc…"

Trailing off his sentence as he read the code that the computer had highlighted, his brows furrowed. _This doesn't look right…_

A new voice entered the conversation, asking, "I'll be cool with what?"

Code forgotten, Chuck whipped his chair around to find Sarah, freshly showered, standing just inside the Morgan Door. Two suitcases at her feet and a neutral expression on her face, she looked at the two boys for an answer. Morgan offered nothing, and Chuck found himself rapidly sputtering out something.

"Uh, well, Morgan here was just saying how he wanted to make sure you and him were cool…after, you know, all the _stuff_ he's accidentally done recently. He even brought Sizzling Shrimp!" Chuck pointed toward the Bamboo Dragon bag, giving Morgan the perfect chance to jump in. When no jumping came, Chuck cleared his throat a few times. "Right, Morgan?"

"Yeah, one sec, Chuck. Right in the middle of a battle, here…"

"Morgan!"

Chuck's sharp tone caused Morgan to drop the controller and give him a surprised look. Sighing, Chuck jerked his head toward Sarah, reminding Morgan why he'd stopped by to visit in the first place. Scrambling off the bed, Morgan theatrically coughed a few times, and prepared to launch into his lengthy, rehearsed spiel. Sarah's less-than-amused expression, the product of a long day and Morgan's unexpected presence at the end of it, however, produced a hastily abridged version.

"So, uh, if anyone deserves happiness, it's my man Chuck, here. And I know that you, as his smoking hot future co-pilot of choice…" Chuck nervously coughed as Sarah's eyes narrowed, prompting Morgan to talk faster. "…smoking hot in a _very_ objective sense, of course, will absolutely make that happen. As Chuck's perpetual wingman, though, I just wanted to make sure that you and I were…cool. After the whole knife thing and all the other stuff. Uh…yeah, that's all."

Sarah risked a glance over at Chuck, who wasn't quite begging her to accept Morgan's curiously worded apology, but his expression was certainly…encouraging. _Like I could actually resist that look of his if I wanted to_, she thought, summoning her last shred of patience to respond_._

"You and I are fine, Morgan. I appreciate the…thought, and the Sizzling Shrimp."

Not wanting to give Morgan the chance to go on, Chuck bounced out of his chair and applauded before wrapping his arm around Morgan's shoulder and steering him toward the window. Sarah saw his plan and subtly moved herself out of the way, leaving the path to the window completely clear while Chuck raved to Morgan with a rushed, forced enthusiasm.

"I told you she'd be cool with it. We'll have to solidify this all with an Evening of Morgan soon. But, it's getting really dark out. You better get going before it gets worse—totally wouldn't want you to hit a pothole or something because of inadequate lighting. Pedal safe, buddy!"

"Oh…yeah, definitely will, Chuckster," Morgan replied as he stepped out of the window, turning around to give them a fake salute. "Night guys!" Walking across the courtyard, he silently congratulated himself on how good his speech had gone and how he had exited the room with such poise and of his own volition.

Once Morgan was past the fountain, Chuck immediately yanked the window shut and locked it, letting out a long sigh of relief, much to Sarah's amusement.

"You're lucky you got the short version of that speech," he said, noting her amusement and pointing with mock seriousness as he walked back to his desk and fell into the chair, spinning it back towards the computer to look over the blinking code again. "The version he's been rehearsing all day was much longer. There was grand gesturing at one point."

Thinking about a longer version made her wince.

"I bet."

_Shit, speaking of grand gesturing, that reminds me…_

"I've got department meeting tomorrow morning. What's your day look like?"

He shot her a confused look over his shoulder before turning back to look at the monitor.

"They, uh, gave me the option of working from home tomorrow or going into the office, since they woke me up this morning. Why," he asked, finishing with the computer and spinning around to look at her with a curious smile-smirk on his face, "need a cheerleader?"

_God, now _there's_ an image. _It didn't matter how long and trying the day was—she found herself genuinely smiling back. Not entirely of her own volition, she crossed the room and sat across his lap, surprising both herself and Chuck in the process.

"Tempting." Settling into a more comfortable position, her voice fell to a barely audible whisper as her head dropped to his shoulder. "Mind giving a presentation on network security?"

Noticing the shift in her tone as well as the change in volume, Chuck reached around her to turn up the music piping through the computer's speakers. His answer, consequently, was masked, as hers had been, but easier to hear.

"Uh…suuuuuuure. You do remember that I ended up finding problems, though, right? I don't think I can make it a 'good job, team!' presentation."

"I remember. I want the problems out there. Abigail _just_ mentioned the meeting to me today, and she did it on purpose."

The sentence was punctuated with an irritated sigh. If Sarah hadn't been in the middle of directing the clean-up effort at Reed's office when Abigail nonchalantly mentioned the meeting, with worker bees present as witnesses, the ensuing discussion would have been…_not_ nonchalant.

Chuck got the gist of Sarah's request just fine, indicated by his rambling answer.

"Wow, alright then. Not going to be a pleasant meeting. That's…a little scary…unpleasant spy meetings, I mean. Should I wear a vest, in case you guys start throwing things? But, yeah, sure, I can cook up a presentation for tomorrow." _…if I write off any possibility of sleep tonight, that is._

Smiling into his shoulder, she picked her head up to give him a quick kiss of thanks when she noticed him curiously looking at her suitcases, their presence registering for the first time.

"Going somewhere?" he asked.

His question provided the needed segue into the staged conversation they needed to have tonight. She'd worked out the details with Casey earlier, but she wasn't looking forward to the actual discussion at all. Clamping down on her own fear and high level of worry, she placed a gentle kiss by his ear while intensely whispering.

"Play along, and _please_ don't freak out, it's alright."

She was standing and moving toward her suitcases, initiating the conversation in a normal voice seconds later.

"Actually, I'm going to be staying here until we get a place of our own."

…_uh, where did this come from, and why don't I like how it's starting?_ He tried to control his growing sense of dread—and shock—while replying.

"...whyyyyyyy? I mean. It's totally fine—I know we were, uh, planning on moving in together soon, but…why now?"

"Remember the guys from the gala?" she carefully asked.

He could only nod in response as his eyes started to bug out of his head, preliminary connections beginning to form.

"John caught a few of them in the courtyard this morning. It looks like their plan was the same as it was on Friday night. That's what he wanted, and that's why I asked you to stay home today."

_FULCRUM WAS IN THE COURTYARD THIS MORNING! _Rocketing out of his chair, Chuck started pacing from his closet door to the bedroom door and back again, mind racing with all the different implications. _HOLY CRAP OH MY GOD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD! _

She let him pace unhindered in the hopes that expending the energy would calm him down. After a full minute, he was still flying around the room, becoming more wound up instead of less. _Shit, he needs to relax or this isn't going to work._

On his next pass, she stepped directly in front of him and placed her hands on his shoulders, preventing him from fidgeting away while she stared him down. His eyes eventually stopped twitching around the room to settle on her face long enough to remember what she'd said right before the conversation started.

_Don't freak out…right. Need to play along or else we're in trouble. Got it. OK, I can do this, I can do this…_

"Sorry, kind of freaking out a little bit," he weakly offered, letting out a breath slowly through his nose. _Crap,_ _what question does she need me to ask to get this back on track?_ "Why didn't you tell me this morning, after you came back in?" _Maybe that one?_

It seemed to be the right one—she gave him the briefest smile before letting him resume his pacing at a more reasonable tempo and answering.

"I had to ask John something first. You know he's a reservist, right?"

"Uh…yeeeeeeeah, he's mentioned it once or twice."

"Right, so. What he did when he was active duty and what I did for the government are…similar…"

"Wait, so John knew you did…whatever you did with the yogurt and killer spoons?"

The question was barely out of his mouth before his brain caught up. _Oh CRAP. That does NOT qualify as a fake-ish question…_

"He suspected, but didn't know for sure until this morning," she smoothly answered, tone deceptively light and teasing. "May I continue now?"

…_or maybe it does qualify as fake-ish. Thank God. _She continued when he offered no protest.

"Because our jobs were similar, I asked him to help me keep an eye on you until I can fix this, and he agreed. He took tomorrow off to watch the apartment while we're both at work to see if anyone else comes poking around. Beyond that…we're going to take it one day at a time."

He nodded as he continued to pace, appropriately stunned into silence now that the conversation had finished, tension radiating off him. By the tenth time he walked by, Sarah had enough, and stepped in front of him again.

"You're going to wear the floor out. Relax."

Steering him toward the bed, he sat down on the end of it and ran a hand through his hair, shoulders visibly tight. She cupped his cheek to force him to look at something other than the floor.

"There's a plan, right? Because you being my bodyguard or whatever isn't exactly the reason we're together…and Cas, erm…John, uh, _John_'s not a natural-born stalker-like guy, and the whole kind of scary-guys-trying-to-kidnap-me thing isn't exactly a boon for Chuck security, so I'm hoping you're going to tell me that there's a plan?"

Sarah was able to keep a straight face, mainly because she was undecided between laughing at the familiar speech and paling at the fact that he'd just said everyone's cover aloud. She continued to be undecided until Chuck finished, paused, registered what he said, and gave her an incredulous 'oh my God, really, did I _seriously_ just say that aloud?' look.

To her credit, she tightly pressed her lips together to head off a smirk, but the reaction was enough to make him roll his eyes and let out a strained chuckle that gradually became more relaxed. It did wonders for releasing the bulk of the tension in the room, making it much easier to answer him.

"We're _working_ on a plan. I know the situation's not good, but…you trust me, right?"

He stopped chuckling and looked at her strangely.

"Of course I do," stating it like it was the most obvious, blatantly true statement in the world, tipping forward to kiss her for reinforcement.

"Then trust me—you're not going anywhere."

-.-.-.-

**Day 11: Monday**

Marilyn hastily sat down at her work computer and skimmed over her burgeoning inbox, glancing at the taskbar once to see that it was 8:40am. Part of her Sunday was spent talking to Abigail about the breach at Reed Associates. The other part was equally divided between calming down the watcher present in the courtyard during Casey's Fulcrum take-down and doing the surveillance herself to get the details about what had really happened.

Checking email took a back seat when pitted against client break-ins and livid bosses, petrified local muscle, and potential kidnapping attempts.

Noticing the response from Tim, she read it over quickly before firing off a reply and flying out the door.

_Tim,_

_You'll never believe the things that went down this weekend. But, as a result, I'll probably be at work until early evening. Call when your flight gets here—the number's still the same—and I'll see what I can do to get out of here and tell you about it. We can talk about the rest of your email then, too._

_Have to run. Walker's first day, and Abigail sprung a 9am meeting for her whole department by way of introduction. Abigail + the other VPs and I are sitting in to see how our favorite ex-spy handles this one._

_Best,_

_Marilyn_

-.-.-.-

The large conference room was enclosed by two short walls, one long wall, and another long wall comprised completely of windows, offering a view of the hallway outside. She was standing at the front of it, the front being along one of the short walls. The rest of the room was teeming with people, muscle and nerds alike, both kinds falling under her purview as the new Vice President of Operations and Planning.

Critically eyeing her personnel, Sarah didn't like what she saw. Yet, only a single thought came to mind as Sarah's eyes drifted to her right again to glance out of the wall of windows. It was about the one person currently not in the room.

_Intersect be damned. If he overslept and isn't here by 8:50, I'm going to kill him._

He'd been up all night working…again. She only knew because she felt him crawl into bed and wrap an arm around her right before the alarm went off. When it had, he merely groaned and let go of her long enough to smack it into silence, muttering that, yes, he was just going to bed; yes, he remembered the presentation; but, no, he didn't need to get up right now. Since _John_ had off today from the Buy More, _John_ said he could borrow the Crown Vic to drive to Fort Knox, and not to worry, just set his cell phone alarm for the right time and he'd see her before the presentation.

She'd flipped over to quietly ask how he was feeling ('dating a badass, feel fine' was his barely intelligible answer) and by the time she comprehended what he said about not riding in with her, he was half-asleep already. With his pillow pulled over his head, teetering like a seesaw, the argument was effectively ended before it even started.

That had been a few hours ago. She stole a glance at the digital clock mounted on the wall: 8:48am. Abigail and the three VPs slipped into the room, taking up position in an unoccupied corner as they silently nodded at Sarah. _Yeah, "don't worry." Riiiight…_ Returning the nod, she surreptitiously pulled out her cell phone and hid it under the table to check Chuck's GPS signal. "_Don't worry" my ass._

Looking at the display out of the corner of her eye, she did an imperceptible double-take at the location displayed, and immediately glanced out the wall of windows. As the GPS was telling her, Chuck was indeed in the hallway, having flown past half of the room. Currently, he was comically sliding across the polished granite floor in his dress shoes as he attempted to stop before passing the room entirely.

_Oh I'd love to hear this explanation_, Sarah thought as Chuck entered the room without drawing attention to himself and weaved his way up to the front to unpack. Pointedly ignoring the very curious glances of the executive quartet, she silently watched him set up and raised a single eyebrow when he finally met her eye.

"What?" he whispered after nervously swallowing, reaching to fidget for his tie before thinking better of it. "How was I supposed to know that the Crown Vic's a little broken right now and accelerates from 0 to 50 in 4.5 _minutes_? Not my fault!"

He settled for undoing the buttons of his suit jacket instead, revealing a black vest that matched the jacket, paired with a gray shirt and white tie.

_God, a three-piece suit…in reverse Nerd Herd colors_, she thought while rolling her eyes at his answer. _Is he trying to kill me?_

Her calm exterior never cracked when she nodded once at his attire and offered a deadpan comment.

"Cute."

Puzzled, he glanced down at what he was wearing, looking back up with a small smirk.

"Just like me, right?"

She cleared her throat a few times to suppress a smile, eyes snapping to the wall clock for a distraction in time to see the digits switch to 9:00am. _Thank God, time to start before he gets us both in trouble._ Chuck's eyes had followed hers to the clock, and he was now bouncing up and down to expend his typical nervous energy. The room fell silent as she began to speak.

"Ladies, gentlemen. Let's not waste time with long introductions. The purpose of this meeting is to determine the current state of our internal network security and our external, client security. To assess our network's security, security renown for its sophistication and quality, I asked an outsider to try to breach it. Chuck Bartowski of Symantec was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to share what he found with all of us, so I'll turn the floor over to him. Chuck?"

Sarah stepped to the side and sat down, and the whole room looked at Chuck expectantly: the muscle looked openly curious, the nerds looked smug, and the executives hid their curiosity by constantly looking back and forth from Chuck to Sarah. Taking a sip of water, he cleared his throat nervously—his opening had taken him the better part of the night to perfect—before beginning. _Please let this work…_

"When I was asked to vet your security, I'll admit—I was a little nervous. You folks, as Sarah mentioned, have an outstanding reputation. In the history of the company, your network's never been hacked."

If possible, the nerds looked even more smug as Chuck continued.

"That said, imagine my surprise when I found out that you guys were only running…" and proceeded to rattle off the exact specifications of the entire Fort Knox network, not stopping once to look down at his notes.

No one looked smug anymore.

The executives were floored.

For her part, Sarah was doing her best to keep an impassive exterior. She had somehow forgotten how adorable he was when he talked technospeak. Coupled with what he was wearing, she slowly counted backward from ten as he began walking through how he'd hacked their network.

_Oh, yeah. _Definitely_ trying to kill me._

-.-.-.-

_Well, that could have gone much worse_, Chuck thought while texting Sarah from the elevator to say good-bye, leaning up against one of the walls as the doors slid shut. _Probably should have spent a little more time going over how to fix the security holes, but not enough time… _About to send the text, he looked up long enough to see Sarah gracefully slip through the impossibly narrow gap between the doors.

"Trying to sneak away?" she calmly asked once the doors had shut and the car descended toward the parking garage.

Surprised, his head bounced between Sarah and his phone a few times before cancelling the text message and pocketing the device. _Only she could squeeze through a space that size like she had room to spare. _He tugged at his tie while twisting against the wall so that he was half-facing her, a position she mirrored a short distance away.

"If by 'sneaking away,' you mean, 'Choosing to forgo your esteemed leader's impassioned speech,' then YES—I am _absolutely _trying to sneak away…"

_Of course, that's if "impassioned speech" and "ABSOLUTELY INSANE BLOWOUT" are the same thing._

His 20-minute brief for the nerds and Sarah's similar brief for the muscle had a common prognosis: things were very, very bad; there were serious shortcomings that needed to be fixed immediately. The entire meeting had taken less than an hour. After the underlings had scurried off to begin working on Sarah's myriad requests, Abigail had exploded. Among Abigail's demands, issued directly to the VPs other than Sarah, was an explanation as to how things could have deteriorated so much without any of them noticing.

Abigail exploding on the phone was trying enough. Abigail exploding in person was, in a word, ridiculous. _And scary. Holy crap. _Chuck had slipped out the door after her tirade—and the similar tirades in response to Abigail's from the others—showed no signs of slowing.

Pausing to replay the scene again in his mind, he eventually finished his sentence.

"…speaking of which, how did _you_ sneak away? You were totally in the middle of that mess."

_That I was_, she thought with a small sigh and eye roll, relaxing a little. She _knew _the meeting wasn't going to be pleasant, but she hadn't anticipated Abigail flying off the handle. She'd been forced into playing impartial referee, despite her attempts to stay OUT of the discussion until everyone had calmed down. Successfully calming everyone had been mixed until she'd…

"Played the fiancé card," she tersely admitted. _They all calmed _right_ down at the mention of your name. Unbelievable. My coworkers are all not-so-secretly love with my boyfriend._

Despite not saying the last part aloud, Chuck looked at her curiously before a cautious grin crept out. He folded his arms across his chest and lightly bumped her with one of his elbows.

"Sarah Walker, are y…are you jealous?"

"No." _Didn't I head off this line of questioning before, and make it clear that we weren't going there?_

His grin dimmed slightly, transforming into a skeptical smirk. A well-timed eyebrow raise finally did her in.

"Fine, a little," she reluctantly admitted.

The grin returned in full force, and she found her eyes dropping to the floor as a reciprocal grin and blush spread across her face. _We're going to need to establish a rule_, she thought as she fought back the blush, _no smiling like that in public, because that's just…dangerous._

"See, was that so hard to admit?"

Eyes returning to his face, the semi-murderous look she delivered indicated that it certainly was. Grin widening even more, he stood up straight as the elevator suddenly slowed. Dinging once, the doors opened to reveal the underground parking garage, Casey's Crown Vic parked a few spots away from the elevator.

Taking a single step out into the garage, Chuck turned back around and put his hand on the doors to keep them from closing. Hesitating for a moment, his grin faded as he slowly started speaking. Picking up the pace as he went on, the last part of the sentence sounded like one word by the time he was done.

"I think, in celebration of your admission and the fact that my presentation didn't go _nearly_ as bad as I thought it would, we should go out to dinner tonight."

_He thinks his presentation went poorly?_, she thought, looking at him oddly. Taking a few steps forward to the front of the elevator car, she stood in front of him and focused on fixing and re-tightening his tie while answering.

"Chuck, your presentation was good."

"Uh huh."

"It _was_," she shot back, tightening his tie too tightly before loosening it again to reinforce her point. "I was there, remember."

"Oh…well, OK then." _No need to strangle me, now… _Incredulity and relief flooded his features before he realized that she'd avoided answering his question, and his eyes narrowed to reflect the fact. "Ha, nice try, Walker. Date tonight?"

"You realize that we're a little bit engaged, right? I don't think you need a pretext for asking me out."

"I know we're engaged—I was there, remember?"

"Vaguely."

Looking at her expectantly with a tinge of nervousness, she knew what he was really asking about: a real date, one befitting their new relationship status. She knew what the answer had to be. She also knew what she wanted the answer to be. Surprisingly, the response was the same…for once.

"Alright."

Brushing her lips against his, she gave him a gentle push toward the car, enabling her to step out into the garage to ensure he made it there safely. He started walking backwards before her words registered, grin stretching across his face once they did.

"Wait, really?"

"Mmhmm. Well, as long as you stay in that suit. I don't know if it'd work otherwise."

It was his turn to turn red as he gave her another quick kiss before heading toward the Vic. "Duly noted. I better go get some work done. See you tonight?"

"Absolutely."

-.-.-.-

After watching Chuck safely drive away, Sarah returned to the conference room to resume calming her coworkers down. While attempting to do so, the elevator dinged before stopping on the firm's main floor. Out stepped a slightly shaken-up Chuck Bartowski, impressive gash down his right temple, coughing erratically, but otherwise fine.

Walking back toward the conference room, a drop of blood trickled down the side of his face and dangled precariously as he knocked once before opening the door to find a calmer, more rational discussion taking place inside. Despite all five heads already looking toward the door, courtesy of his knock, Sarah was the first to react—up, moving, and visibly paling as she noticed the blood, making it over to him in a handful of strides.

"Sorry to bother you at work," he croaked, turning his head away from her to cough a few more times, "but I *think* someone just tried to kill me by blowing up the Vic."


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I jinxed myself with the comment about being able to get the last chapter done early. Every possible random, innocuous, and incredibly time-consuming event has popped up over the past few weeks. If you multiply my negative awesomeness by negative one, the enormous resulting product is how incredibly sorry I am, because not only did this chapter take forever to get out (obviously), but it followed a chapter with an…interesting ending._

_That said, I've never written a chapter so quickly before in my entire life. Perhaps that'll help to mitigate my unawesomeness a little bit. Hopefully chapter 4 will be a little faster in coming. Your guess is as good as mine, at this point._

_A few people requested a brief recap of everything that's happened in the preceding stories (_SHA_ and Watcher). Rather than type one in paragraph format, I embedded the as much of a recap as I could into the story. Didn't hit all the big points still in play, but tried to hit enough of them to jog people's memories. Something to watch for, if you were one of the super-awesome requesters/reviewers of the recap._

_The disclaimers, if you can still remember them, continue to be in effect, particularly the one about typos—it's likely that there are more than normal because of how fast I wrote this. Quadruple apologies for them, because I haven't apologized sufficiently already, and I'll reread and edit more later today._

-.-.-.-

**Day 11: Monday**

Once he confirmed that Chuck was alive and unharmed, Casey let out whimper when he officially heard about the Vic.

Chuck thought there may have been near crying, too. It was hard to tell with all the growling going on. _Come to think of it, I don't think Casey said a single word. He's totally going to kill me…this won't end well…_

That was phone call #1. He'd no sooner hung up with Casey when his phone rang again—Symantec. Uneasily spinning back and forth in one of the room's all-glass swivel chairs, left hand holding his phone while the right held a towel to his head, Chuck was trying to ignore both the blood and Abigail. The stoic and shocked president of Fort Knox Security had positioned herself near the only door leading from the small conference room (that really was more of a panic room, in Chuck's opinion—no windows and lots of concrete) to Sarah's office by implicit request after Sarah had marched him into the room and flew out without uttering a word.

The confusing phone call from his new employer was proving to be a very effective distraction.

"No offense, but you guys said I didn't have to come in today. That's why I'm not there. … Meeting? Today? About what? … What conference? … Whoa whoa whoa, San Francisco, this week! That might be a bad ide… … I'm not _refusing_, it's just...you remember I'm the new guy, right? I mean, there have to be more qualified people than me to go to this thing. … Yes, I remember the virus fix that I coded last week-ish and the new virus you guys called about yesterday that I ended up being right about, but thanks anyways for the reminder. … Look, since I can't make it to the meeting today because you didn't *tell* me about it, can we talk…"

The call suddenly dissolved into white noise, accompanied by a simultaneous snap, like someone had flipped a switch with a bit too much force. Puzzled, Chuck pulled the phone away from his ear and checked the signal. It was practically non-existent, though the call was still connected.

_I'm sitting still—how can I suddenly have no reception? _

Shaking the phone a few times, he checked the signal again—it hadn't budged.

_Like the shaking really helped_, he sardonically noted after a beat. _Cell phones aren't Shake 'n Bake chickens._

About to look around the room more earnestly for potential explanations, a loud slam, sounding directly from his right, echoed around the room. Still on edge from the explosion, he jumped, almost falling out of the chair before recovering enough to awkwardly contort his entire body toward the source of the noise.

Sarah stood a foot or so away, a first-aid kit and manila folder on the table in front of her. Hands planted on the table and slightly leaning forward, she was currently exchanging a wordless, icy look with Abigail. The president had opened her mouth to ask what was going on before noticing her newest vice president's look and immediately snapped her mouth shut again. Another 5 seconds of the patented Walker glare and Abigail left the room, stopping short of slamming the door shut behind her.

Chuck's call completely disconnected once the door shut. Rolling his eyes, they wearily narrowed as Sarah eyed the door for a second longer before a small jammer materialized in her hands. After flicking a switch, she scornfully sent it tumbling across the glass table, and her eyes snapped to the items in front of her. She was conspicuously refusing to look at Chuck, even after he mimicked her forceful jammer-onto-table toss with his phone to try to lighten the oppressively tense atmosphere.

"This room is impervious to eavesdropping by design, and its counter-surveillance measures are on," she mentioned, with a tense head jerk toward a large switch near the door that was now glowing green, "but I don't trust anything around here after..."

Her eyes slammed shut as abruptly stopped, tensing and untensing her jaw a few times to keep her emotions in check. _…after you almost blew up in our secure, underground parking garage_, her subconscious finished, sounding an awful lot like Casey. She let out a sharp breath through her nose. _Keep it together, Walker! _

That part sounded an awful lot like Casey, too.

Annoyed with herself, she flipped open the manila folder to reveal a frozen screenshot from the parking garage security camera printed out on glossy photo paper. A woman was kneeling by the rear tire well of the Crown Vic, one arm reaching into the tire well itself. Sarah forced her eyes open as she slid the entire folder across the table to rest in front of Chuck.

"Recognize this person?" she asked, managing to keep her voice level.

Cautiously shifting his gaze from her profile to the folder, Chuck slowly wheeled the chair up to the table; he'd been a few feet away from it before. He had no sooner glimpsed at the photo when the flash hit: a fire truck, a medical file with before-and-after pictures from facial surgery, the Fulcrum eagle, the woman's NSA file, a fire truck.

Unconsciously pressing the towel a little closer to his head, Chuck nervously tapped the picture with his free hand.

"Yeah, she's Fulcrum. Ex-NSA analyst. Worked with your illustrious predecessor, Justin Retborn, in their pre-Fulcrum days while they were both at the NSA."

_That lines up with her record_, she thought grimly. Sarah had recognized the woman—she was a member of Sarah's department—and had pulled her internal personnel file. It noted that she had been hired by Retborn as muscle soon after his own hiring in 2005, but the file conspicuously lacked any job application or letters of recommendation.

The conspicuous absence had bothered Sarah, but she couldn't put her finger on why. In light of the flash's intel, she knew why now: it meant one thing.

_Fort Knox wasn't only providing security for Fulcrum's operations in the LA area. Fort Knox has Fulcrum agents on as employees, and not just Justin. __Shit__._

So preoccupied with her thoughts, Sarah didn't notice how forcefully she opened the first-aid kit, the lid loudly banging off the table. She did, however, notice Chuck's reaction, mainly because it all but leapt out of him.

"Eaaaaaasy! The first-aid kit's not Fulcrum! Or at least I haven't flashed on it, so I don't think it is."

She couldn't help but let out a tired-sounding laugh before shooting him an "uh huh, real funny" look over her shoulder. Quietly pulling out the necessary medical accoutrements, she sat down in the chair positioned in front of it and physically turned Chuck's chair to face hers, firmly moving the towel away from his head. Seeing the laceration again, she involuntarily winced—it was shallow enough to avoid stitches, but deep enough to bleed profusely.

Noticing that he was about to speak—and probably voice the question that she didn't want to answer (that, yes, Fulcrum had tried to _kill_ him this time—one of the biggest reasons she had avoided his eyes since entering the room)—she spoke before he could. The question she asked to counter his was the other one she'd been avoiding since he appeared, bloody and disheveled, at the main conference room door 10 minutes earlier.

It would probably give her nightmares for months.

"Let's hear it," she steadily asked. "What happened after you started driving up the ramp?"

Eyes widening as Sarah started moving medical-like things toward the side of his head, Chuck scrunched his eyes shut and resisted the urge to twist away (lest she put his head in a death vice) and began to explain.

"So…"

_The Vic had started slowly climbing up the shallow incline of the parking garage's ramp to street level, and the gentle turn of the ramp had finally obscured his view of Sarah via the rearview mirror._

_Returning his full attention to the road in front of him, he hadn't stopped humming the first tune that came to mind since he got back in the car, the hum accompanied by a huge grin. He had a date tonight. With Sarah. A real date, too. As poorly defined as their current relationship status was, other than he was fairly certain they were in one, he thought that made for a pretty good day._

_And she said the presentation hadn't gone super horribly. That helped, too. If the date went well, and he actually got to sleep through the whole night after the date, the day might even be, dare he say it, _awesome_. _

_Lightly drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and continuing to hum enthusiastically, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Casey. Casey hadn't been a fan of him driving the Vic, but had little choice, in the interest of keeping up appearances of plutonic, non-asset/agent friendship. In the interest of Intersect security, the NSA agent had _requested_ that Chuck call once he had safely arrived at Fort Knox before the presentation, and once he was leaving after._

_After hearing knuckle popping in the background, Chuck readily agreed—calling before and after seemed like a reasonable request._

_The phone rang once before Casey picked up, answering without a simple greeting._

"_Hey, I'm almost out of the parking garage. Thanks for telling me, by the way, that the Vic was bro…"_

_Chuck's eyes had drifted to the speedometer, where he noticed for the first time that the car was smoothly accelerating as cleared the ramp and drove down the last bit of straightaway before the exit gate onto the street. _

_That struck him as odd, seeing as the car had definitely _not_ been smoothly accelerating before._

_Brows furrowed, the car's interior was quiet for the first time since he'd entered, and now that he wasn't humming or talking, Chuck noticed an irregular, monotone beeping. The irregularities had a distinct rhythm, and a particular section of the beeping triggered a flash: a rotary telephone, a sound wave profile of the beeping, schematics and details of the CIA-designed bomb, reports indicating that the bomb design had been employed by Fulcrum, a rotary telephone._

_Slamming on the brakes and rapidly blinking the flash-induced cobwebs away, he began sputtering aloud as he began frantically jamming at the seatbelt buckle and clawing at the door handle, completely forgetting that Casey could hear everything._

"_Oh, oh no, oh! Oh, not good. BOMB. Bomb in the car…under the car…in the car…under, in, under…oh crap oh crap oh crap!"_

_Not registering the raised voice emanating from his cell phone, Chuck accidentally disconnected the call while stuffing it back into his pocket while the seatbelt clicked loose and flew back into place with an efficient snapping sound. Twisting to face the door, he threw his weight against it as he yanked at the handle once more. The door finally swung open, and he mov…_

"Wait," Sarah interrupted, surprised to hear that Chuck had _known_ about the bomb—she thought he'd only narrowly escaped. _Maybe this won't involve nightmares after all. _"If you weren't in the car when it blew up, what's this from, then?" Her fingers lightly ghosted over the newly gauze-covered gash.

"Ha, uh, well…"

…_and he moved toward the opening. In his haste, he hadn't noticed that he'd promptly screeched to a halt right next to one of the large, ubiquitous garage concrete support pillars. The pillar prevented the door opening entirely, something Chuck still didn't notice until he was halfway out the door. By that point, the door had hit the pillar, and because he had throw it open with such force, it had bounced back and started to close again, connecting solidly with his head on its return journey. _

_Tumbling sideways onto the pavement and quickly shaking off the 'light' love tap the door had delivered, he scrambled away from the Vic. Not watching where he was going, he proceeded to unintentionally tumble backwards into one of the shallow drainage ditches running along the outer wall of the garage. Before he could register where he'd landed, or that it was probably a good place to be, the Vic exploded._

"_Oh God," Chuck announced to the empty garage, braving a glimpse at the Vic's charred remains as he hesitantly got to his feet. "He's going to kill me."_

_He started working his way toward the elevator on the ground level after that. With a huge, burning car blocking his way, it was harder than one might imagine…_

"…and then once I got to the elevator, I got in, came up, found you. Called Casey, too."

Sarah didn't respond. Feeling much more at peace with the entire event now that he'd said it aloud, Chuck curiously popped open his eyes for the first time since beginning the story to see Sarah's reaction.

One hand was clamped over her mouth. The other was in a tight fist in her lap while she slightly shook her head from side to side and looked at him with a look of unbelieving exasperation. She finally had to lean back in the chair and look up at the ceiling. _The man has nine lives, I swear to God. This one's going to be a nightmare of a different sort. Here we go again, though—which reaction do I pick: laugh, cry, kiss, or smack?_

She was in the process of deciding when Chuck spoke.

"I don't think she was trying to kill me."

His tone wasn't the "I see the best in everyone" tone, but the "I'm thinking about this logically, and it makes no sense" tone. It got her attention, and she looked down to find him studying the picture from the security footage thoughtfully.

"What makes you say that?"

"Wellllllllllll," he slowly started, turning to face her again, "I don't know a lot about bombs, so stop me if this makes no sense. The flash had the bomb's specs in it, and those said that this bomb's yield is small for its size, highly variable, and not particularly reliable. I'm guessing there are similar-sized bombs that are more reliable, predictable, and have a bigger boom?"

She immediately thought of three that fit all the criteria. Her assent through silence encouraged him to continue.

"Yeah, exactly. Why not pick one of those if you're trying to, uh…deal with someone? Why pick the sketchy one? So, there's that.

"Aaaaaaand," he turned back toward the table, indicating that she should do the same so he could point at the picture, "look at where she's putting the thing. I don't know anything about bomb placement, either, but if you wanted to make sure that something blew up, wouldn't you put the bomb near the gas tank, _underneath_ the car? She's specifically not putting it there. It looks like she was trying to disable the car, not blow it up."

_Not quite that simple, but he's got a point_, Sarah thought. _Why _was_ she pu…_

"Where would you have put it?" he asked, interrupting her train of thought.

"...WHAT?"

"Hypothetically! If you wanted to blow up _a_ car, not _that_ car, where would you put that type of bomb?"

Shooting him a dangerous glare, she forced herself to think about the Vic as a target. It was unsettling, to say the least.

"…not there," she finally concluded. Noticing his unsatisfied expression, she sternly amended her statement. "And, no, I'm not telling you where. Drop it."

Surprisingly, he did. Probably because he knew he'd made his point. She sat back in the chair and folded her arms across her chest, formally voicing the conclusion they'd just reached.

"Because the firm is crawling with Fulcrum agents, one of them checked in once they found out you were here. They were ordered to disable the Vic to send another message to me, but blew it up instead. With you almost inside."

She paused to think if there was any way that this could go over well. _…nope, not really. _The thought led to the final bit of her conclusion.

"Beckman's going to love this."

Chuck stopped cautiously prodding his bandage and sat up straighter; a light bulb had gone on. The mention of Beckman's name seemed to remind him that they could actually _talk_ without fear of being overheard by the unknown individuals who had been watching their every move for the past week, sent by unknown others with potentially nefarious intentions. The only known piece of information, really, was motive: the others were curious as to why Casey and Sarah were in LA together for so long.

"Wh…what did she say about yesterday?" he tentatively asked.

Beckman had hit the roof, almost having a coronary on screen. It had taken both Casey and Sarah 20 minutes to explain why moving Chuck to a bunker would defeat the purpose of the new covers she'd ordered them to establish the previous Sunday to hide their real mission. Casey was the coincidental cover-neighbor, and Sarah was the ex-CIA agent who had retired because she'd fallen in "love," and was getting cover-married.

Beckman's constant emphasis was on the word _cover_. Especially for Sarah.

"She wasn't happy. This won't help, unless Casey made some serious progress today tracking down the location of the virus authors he got on Friday night."

_And with everything that's happened since then, I seriously doubt he's had the time._

"Wait," he mused aloud, "was she not happy about the Fulcrum thing or not happy about the engaged-for-real thing?"

"Fulcrum. I told you, she can't find out ab…," the last part of his sentence suddenly clicked, "…wait, _engaged_?"

Everything derailed after that.

_Where the hell did THAT come from!_, she thought, head whipping toward him, doing her best not to freak out.

"Are we engaged for real?" he carefully asked. _Since I've been wondering that since Friday night, and I really can't ask anywhere else where we won't blow the cover. Thank you, counter-surveillance measures._

"No!," she immediately answered, training kicking in before she could stop it. His face had already fallen by the time she could override it. "…damn it, yes. Just…both, really."

Now he looked thoroughly confused. At least it mirrored what she felt.

"Chuck, do we have to talk about this now? Someone tried to blow you up not even half an hour ago."

He had the decency to look sheepish and guilty, but didn't budge, wheeling his chair a little closer to hers.

"Why both?"

_For Christ's sake, Chuck, out of all the times to bring this up…_ It wasn't as if she hadn't considered it, because she had. She was simply fine with the ambiguity until she became more comfortable with the answer.

"Because I'd like us to date first before we get married, but by the time Ellie's wedding happens, we _will_ have dated for a while, solving the problem, alright?"

The answer was snippier than she'd intended it to be, but she was surprised that it had come out at all, given her record with talking about feelings. He only considered her answer for a moment before responding with a small smile.

"OK. Makes sense to me."

She looked at him, incredulous.

"…you're kidding me. That's it?"

"Well, no, because while I was going to be pretty adamant that we still go out tonight, I'm absolutely going to be adamant now. We're _definitely _going out tonight."

If he hadn't started grinning uncontrollably at her, she was almost positive she would have throttled him right then and there. Instead, she was lightly pounding her forehead with the side of her closed fist, complemented with a smile on her face.

_He's really going to be the death of me. The man almost gets blown up, and he still wants to go out to eat._

Thoughts of blowing up were finally sufficient to start getting the conversation back on track.

"After earlier, Chuck, we're definitely _not_ going out tonight. Rain check."

"Come onnnnn, they can't kidnap me if they can't find m…"

A sharp knock at the door cut him off. Abigail swiftly opened the door without waiting for acknowledgment, reminiscent of Chuck's earlier entrance into the conference room.

Of course, he was literally dripping with blood. Abigail, as best Chuck could tell, was not.

Blood made non-acknowledgment justified.

"We need to talk," she calmly announced, turning swiftly on her heel and stalking back into Sarah's office without waiting for a response.

They both stared, mouths slightly agape, at the open door. Not wanting to lose the argument, Chuck began to finish his statement, but Sarah surprised him into silence with a hard kiss.

"Don't," she whispered against his lips as he recovered. "With the door open, the room's not shielded from surveillance. Just work from here today so I can watch you," slightly tilting her at the computer, well-hidden in one of the wall's recesses, "OK?"

Clearing his throat once, he skeptically raised his eyebrows, earning a solid poke in the stomach.

"Fine," he ended up whispering back. "But this talk isn't over. And we're going out tonight."

-.-.-.-

Sarah walked out of the panic room to discover the three other VPs scattered around her office, two of them near the door, while Marilyn was in an armchair situated up against the far wall, near Sarah's desk. Abigail took a seat near Marilyn, and asked her question once she was comfortably settled.

"I'd like an explanation as to what's going on."

_First the ambush _on _Chuck, then the ambush _from_ Chuck, and now the ambush from the execs…_

Forcing in a calming breath, Sarah subtly pulled at the doorknob to make sure the door was truly shut before positioning herself an equal distance away from both groups. All noticed that she was calmer than before, if not slightly irritated—something she made no effort to hide.

"The leftovers from my last project, the ones who went after Chuck on Friday night, just went after him again today in _our_ secure parking garage because some of them are employed by _this_ security firm."

Not stopping to acknowledge anyone's shocked expression, Sarah pulled out the surveillance photo, and handed it to the VPs near the door.

"Can you two detain this person and escort her to a holding cell?"

They moved to comply without consciously realizing it—Sarah didn't leave room for interpretation. The number of people in the office had halved in a matter of seconds. With the others gone, Sarah turned to square off with Abigail and Marilyn, stance solidly neutral, but expression less than amused.

Abigail, sensing the ultimatum that Sarah was about to deliver, spoke first, having completely shifted into full-on spy mode.

"How bad do you think it is?"

_Oh, you have _no_ idea_ _how bad Fulcrum has infiltrated this firm._

"Individuals from the group noticed he was here, located his car, and put a bomb under it, all in less than 60 minutes. It's bad. Chuck doesn't know that, though, but he's not leaving my sight until the problem's been dealt with."

The last three words hung in the air. Mentally calculating something, Abigail eventually responded.

"Fine, then let's deal with it. Let Chuck go to the conference in San Francisco this weekend…"

Sarah's eyes narrowed, though her posture gave away nothing. "What conference in San Francisco?"

"Abigail was just telling us all about it," Marilyn chimed in. "He got a call from work while you were checking the security footage, and they told him that he had to go to a conference this weekend."

_Looks like that talk certainly "isn't over,"_ Sarah thought, _because aside from the fact that he neglected to mention any of that, there's absolutely _no_ way he's going anywhere in this city alone right now, let alone another one, for so many reasons... _

She only said the bit about Chuck going alone aloud, which Abigail responded to with a skeptical suspicion that Sarah didn't care for at all.

"Sarah, I understand your concern, but really. You're overreacting. If we personally handle his travel arrangements—and not the firm at large, but the executives, and I'm talking airtight aliases for him, concealing his destination and lodging, all of that—and keep all of it secret, how are these 'old friends' of yours going to find out?

"Like I was saying, let him go to San Fran, and while he's safely hidden away, we can all help you clean house and get rid of the problem, and he'll be none the wiser."

Abigail's plan made an odd sort of sense…if it didn't involve the Intersect being unsupervised. Not to mention Chuck being 400 miles away without backup when it wasn't guaranteed that Fulcrum wouldn't find out, somehow, where he was. Sarah didn't even want to think about how they'd find out—_One problem at a time, and right now, my problem is that Abigail's plan is somewhat sensible, and it needs to be amended or not sound sensible._

"Maybe I'll ask John to go with him," Sarah tried. "I'd just feel better if someone was there, just in case."

It took Abigail a moment to make the connection. "John…Casey? I thought that was him at your party. I didn't realize that Chuck knew him. What's he up to?"

"They both worked at the Buy More together, actually."

Taking in Abigail's reaction to the non-answer, Sarah's spy radar started going off. Loudly. It only grew louder when Sarah risked a glance at Marilyn.

"No, what's Casey _doing_ here?" Abigail patiently restated. "Do you know?"

Both of the ex-spies were staring at Sarah without flinching, with a hint of something that sent her spy radar into overdrive. Sarah had to study both of them without shifting her eyes before she figured out what it was.

_Shit. They don't believe something about Casey's cover. Ex-spies doubting his cover…because we haven't come up with a good one yet. Fantastic. Add it to the list of problems to solve today._

"We don't talk shop."

She'd no sooner said the words before Abigail smoothly moved for the decisive blow.

"Then how you expect Casey to magically go with Chuck somewhere for a weekend, just for the hell of it, if you don't know what his assignment is? That would be like you going with Chuck somewhere, just for the hell of it, while you were still with the Agency, in the middle of an assignment—it's not going to happen."

_So, Chuck can't _not _go to this mystery conference because Abigail's already decided that it's the perfect way to keep him out of sight and out of the loop. I can't go with him because Abigail already said that she'd want me here to help with the round up; and Casey can't go either, or else he's going to look too suspicious. Ugh, there's no way I can steer this without looking outrageously suspicious_.

Abigail knew Sarah was out of options, too. At least Sarah could still hedge, which she did admirably while crossing to her desk to perch on the edge, neutral expression holding firm.

"I still have to talk to Chuck about it, but fine, why don't you start outlining the general plan. We can talk about it more once that's done."

With a nod, Abigail fell silent, presumably thinking through the various things that had to be done to get Chuck to San Francisco without anyone outside the room knowing. The silence continued, Sarah taking the chance to firmly pinch the bridge of her nose and let out a slow breath. Marilyn was the first to break it, glancing at the closed panic room door as she did, suffering from a severe case of delayed reaction.

"Wow, Chuck's going to be a pain in the ass to protect, if you're really not going to let him out of your sight, because all the things that make him a fantastic fiancé are going to make him a horrible asset."

Abigail nodded in silent assent, a bemused smirk crossing her face at the thought. Neither noticed Sarah fight to control her expression for a split second before intensely staring at Marilyn and clenching her teeth once.

"The thought had occurred to me."


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: This chapter is late by design (though I didn't quite intend for it to be _this_ late). I took some double shifts at work the past two-ish weeks in an attempt to get some time off, but that backfired rather spectacularly. (_Understatement_.) Thus, while I've been writing 3k-7k words a week, it hasn't been for this. The current cycle at work's almost done (thank God—3-4 more weeks), which means that this story _will_ be updated more frequently soon. In the meantime, however, the next chapter will probably be just as delayed as this one—if I can officially backburner this for a few weeks, then work will get done faster, which means I can get back to this faster. Who knows, though. Miracles might happen._

_Notably, the lack of thank yous for the reviewers from the last chapter was _not_ by design. Apologies, and they'll be on their way within the next week. In general, thank you for your continued reading, reviewing, general awesomeness, and patience. The amount possessed of each attribute by all of you far surpasses that of my own, as you are undoubtedly aware. I made this chapter a little longer, in honor of everyone's collective awesomeness and my severe negative awesomeness._

_The last chapter was slightly down tempo on purpose—you'll probably see why by the end of the chapter. This one may be kind of similar for a little bit, but as a whole: time for the fun to start. As it does, keep the usual gambit of disclaimers in mind, as they continue to be in effect (like the one about typos)._

_-.-.-.-_

**Day 11: Monday**

The restaurant was big enough to give its patrons a degree of anonymity, but small enough to foster a degree of closeness. Its dress code was formal enough to keep out shirtless beach-goers, but causal enough where jeans and a button-down would easily pass muster. Menu selections were plentiful and diverse, the food good and affordable.

Chuck was too busy looking out the large plate window to notice inside, thoughts patently divided between the date and nagging doubts about the virus coding for work. Tipping his head back to get every last drop of coffee, he stifled a half-yawn with one hand while pitching the Styrofoam cup into a nearby trash can with the other.

_That would have been the perfect place for dinner—"Shady's Glen." Hmmm, interesting name. I wonder if there's any way that we can sneak out of here and over to there, _casually glancing toward the door. _This really is the day that never ends. It just goes on…and on…and on… _

He wasn't actually in Shady's Glen. He was across the street from it, inside of another food-based venue—a bakery. The excursion was unplanned, complements the economic downturn. _And Ellie_, he mentally noted_. …really, not so much on the downturn. It's all Ellie._ She'd discovered that her and Awesome's wedding cake bakery was among the casualties. The result was a panicked "Wedding Emergency" call to Chuck in order to choose a new one.

His older sister's call was fortuitously timed. Mere minutes before, he'd poked his head into Sarah's office to ask about tonight's plans. After dealing with the ramifications of him nearly being blown up all day, she was in no mood to entertain the thought. The conversation had _not_ been going in his favor until the phone call, summoning them to a bakery a few blocks away from Fort Knox that Ellie had extensively scoped out.

He'd gotten his night out after all, albeit an imperfect one. There was _no_ arguing with an Ellie summons, let alone an Ellie _wedding_ summons.

Sarah knew that much. _I think I'd have better luck convincing Beckman to sanction our relationship_, she thought with an aggravated eye roll. Her tacit acquiescence, however, in no way meant she agreed with it. She'd been hyper-alert since the moment they'd walked out of her office, watching for anything out of the ordinary.

Maintaining that level of readiness with no backup was fast taking its toll on both her energy reserves and patience.

_Of course, it'd help if we weren't in a room with a window the size of six normal ones_, she thought as they all waited in the smaller, front portion of the bakery while the baker finished up her previous appointment in the larger, rear room that contained the ovens, baking racks, and office. _But, for that matter, it'd help if he weren't standing in the MIDDLE of the damn thing. _

Slowly prodding at a kink in her neck, Chuck's none-too-subtle glance toward the bakery door, in junction with their conversation prior to Ellie's call and the large window, pushed her to the breaking point. She silently moved such that she was standing next to him.

"Absolutely not," she hissed under her breath. It was the first they'd spoken since he'd hung up with Ellie. "Don't even think about it."

"What? I'm just looking at the fine craftsmanship of the door!"

Thankfully, the baker emerged with her previous clients, cheerfully inviting them all back. Turning to follow the others, Chuck gave one last half-glance out the window. It unexpectedly turned into a longer one as he noticed the patrons milling outside Shady's Glen, presumably waiting for other members of their dining party. _Wait, that's weird_. Unconsciously, he squared off with the window again.

Having nearly walked through the open doorway into the larger room, Sarah realized he wasn't in tow. _That's it. When I need him to stay put, he moves, and when I need him to move, he stays put. I'm going to kill him_. Closing the distance between them with a handful of large strides, she all but growled when she drew even with him again.

"_Chuck_. Let's. go."

She punctuated the statement with a stern pull on his tie, prepared to drag him, if need be. Lurching toward her from the unexpected tie tug, she instinctively reacted, hands moving to his chest to keep him upright. The action worked, but not before she ended up with her back to the wall perpendicular to the front window, Chuck close aboard.

Still too irate to notice how they'd landed, she did notice that Chuck had no sooner regained his balance by bracing against the wall before leaning back to look out the window; the view from their position was obscured by a large, elaborate fake display cake. His puzzled intensity spurred her own, placating some of her anger.

"What?" she quietly asked, amused to note that he started when she spoke.

"Uh, well, I thought Marilyn said she was working late tonight?"

_That sounds ominous_. As a result, Sarah's voice took on a cautionary tone when she replied.

"She did." Marilyn had said as much when they'd run into her on their way out of the office, en route to their wedding emergency. "Why?"

Looking back at her, both seemed to notice their position at the same time. Thickly swallowing, Chuck elected to snap his head back toward the window in the interest of self-preservation. Sarah chose to turn her head in the opposite direction.

The sight outside made his eyes go wide with basic understanding. _Hide hide hide hide hide!_ His previous attempt at self-preservation was discarded as he shuffled closer to the wall, effectively hiding them both behind the fake display cake, but at an obvious cost. He spoke without blinking, eyes still pointed out the window, head inclining only slightly towards it.

"She's standing right there. And some friends of hers just arrived. Look."

_You're kidding me. _Sarah let out a slow breath, allowing her to focus on conundrum across the street and not her own._ Could anything else possibly happen today? _Lips pressing into a thin line, Sarah channeled enough control to lean into Chuck enough to clear the pesky display cake.

Sure enough, Marilyn was on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant, making small talk with the tallest man in a group of four. All five were ostensibly people watching and admiring the architecture of the nearby buildings, but did so in a subtle, methodical way. The stylized blatancy of the motion, clearly a front for taking stock of the surrounding environment, screamed CIA or NSA.

_At least_ _that explains why we're hiding behind a fake cake, _she thought with narrowed eyes. Three of them independently scrutinized the interior of the bakery within seconds of one another, searching for possible curious on-lookers.

What it didn't explain was why Marilyn was standing across the street, talking to what were almost certainly four spies, when a mere 30 minutes before, she had mentioned how much work she had to do.

It also didn't explain the thoroughness with which they were all examining the vicinity.

_Ominous is an understatement. This doesn't feel right._

Chuck's thoughts were similar as he watched the quintet begin to head inside the restaurant, Sarah's silence confirming his initial reaction. _Oh, this is not good. But, hey, no flashing. That means this is probably the biggest coincidence ever. Let's go with coincidence. Coincidence is easy to deal with. Yeah…coincidence. _

He was about to make a vague comment aloud with a similar sentiment when the tall man reached over the others to hold the door open. In doing so, the sleeve of his sports coat rode up enough to expose a narrow tattoo on his forearm that started at his wrist before disappearing under layers of clothing. Even at a distance, the way in which it bisected the face of the man's wristwatch created a shape sufficient for the familiar tingle to take hold before triggering a flash: a voting booth, a picture featuring the tattoo/watch combination prominently, military fit reps whose redacted content suddenly became readable, the seal of the NSA, a voting booth.

"I only recognized the tall guy," he muttered, resting his forehead on the wall over Sarah's shoulder. "Tim Cook. Air Force Reserve, currently with the NSA, stationed in DC. No clue as to what he's doing here. Nothing to indicate…uh, _not_-niceness. Worked a lot with Retborn when they were both NSA."

She acknowledged the information with a small nod, but slid her hands up to lift his head up from its sudden perch on the wall, closely scrutinizing his expression with a perceptible degree of concern.

"You alright?"

_Aside from the whole being watched/nearly kidnapped/blown-up thing? Oh yeah, completely solid. Totally not freaking out. _He was careful to keep his voice low when answering.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. Fine. Totally fine. But, I mean, come on, that," tilting his head at the window, "that's a, uh, coincidence. Right?"

Awesome chose that moment to lean out from the back room.

"Hey guys, Ell…whoa, mixin' it up in the bakery—awesome!" Unfazed by the sight, he went on without missing a beat. "When you're done, Ellie's asking for your opinion on the proper decorative flower-to-cake size ratio," eyebrows shooting up with several serious nods in an attempt to convey the gravity of the debate before disappearing into the back room.

The look Sarah gave Chuck right after Awesome's exit said it all.

_There's no such thing as coincidences._

-.-.-.-

Across the street at Shady's Glen, the five spies sat in a secluded corner booth, each nursing his or her beverage of choice. The conversation had started with talk of Justin, providing 10 minutes of discussion. It subsequently moved to the more pressing issue. Having just finished recounting the recent tribulations of Chuck Bartowski from 0617 on Sunday morning to 45 minutes prior at Fort Knox, Marilyn downed her second rum and coke in a single gulp, signaling for another without flinching.

Only Tim reacted to the story's content. The three others remained silent, as they had been since arriving 15 minutes ago.

"Someone tried to blow him _up_? You sure?"

"Pretty damn, yeah."

The others took small, staggered swigs from their first beers as silence fell over the table when the server brought Marilyn's refill. She promptly took another pull, swallowing half of it effortlessly. Tim spoke again once the server had left.

"That's kind of…wow. How did you sneak away? I thought you said you had to work late tonight."

"They'd just left before you called. Figured it was a good time to duck out fast, what with Abigail still occupied with the almost-assassin." Another quarter of her drink disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"Fair enough. Is there anything we," Tim gestured towards himself and the others, "can do to help with Abigail's San Francisco contingency, since Walker and Casey can't go?"

"Only if you know people in San Fran that can unofficially watch out for him this weekend." Tumbler now empty, she raised again to indicate another refill.

"I don't, no." Tim tipped the neck of his bottle toward the silent trio. "What about you guys? Have any San Fran connections?"

Waiting again for the server to come and go with Marilyn's fourth drink, one of the trio finally broke their collective silence.

"I have a few friends up that way. I know they'd be glad to help out if I asked. Just send me the travel packet once you get it. If you're alright with telling me all of that, of course."

Sipping at the drink, Marilyn rolled her eyes.

"If Justin thought you were all trustworthy enough, that's good enough for me. And what the hell'd you think I've been doing all day? Best cover and set of travel plans I've put together on short notice." Her eyes never left the liquid sloshing about in her glass as she listed the details verbatim without hesitation, Tim nodding appreciatively at their soundness.

Neither noticed the sinister, knowing grin that the trio exchanged as Marilyn spoke.

-.-.-.-

**Day 12: Tuesday**

_Come on, do I really deserve the evil eye for that! It's totally not my fault!_

Chuck decided to say something aloud, since half of them were sporting one, if not two, evil eyes.

"OK, guys, look—I'm sorry that they want me to go to this conference. I think any of you are much more deserving. Really."

Scattered around the team's lounge—and impromptu conference room—on some high-numbered floor at Symantec, the dozen or so members of Chuck's new team toned down their evil eyes. Some of them actually looked like they believed him, and were hesitantly exchanging looks with the others, as if to say, "he's really not all that bad, who said he was impossible?" The ones whose stares hardened, Chuck was willing to guess, were the ones that he'd argued with on Sunday morning.

_Ha, we're now down to only two or three of them wanting to kill me. Progress! Though they'll have to get in line. _

Cell phone vibrating, he looked down to see yet another picture text message of a potential wedding cake from Ellie. It was the sixth of the day. Thinking about all of last night, complements of the prospective cake, prompted another sentence that earned him a brief sympathetic, knowing glance from the hold-outs before contained chatter erupted from the others to discuss the point.

"…aaaaaaaaaand my fiancée isn't that crazy about the idea. So—_please_, one of you go."

San Francisco and the conference had been the semi-staged, semi-real discussion topic after the unsuccessful bakery visit. Sarah brought it up during the drive home, vaguely mentioning Abigail's allegedly 'brilliant' plan. Suffice it to say, it had resulted in a tense exchange that abruptly ended as soon as the ride home did.

They hadn't talked since—she'd headed over to Casey's under the auspices of "checking in," and he'd managed to pass out before she got back. When he finally woke up that morning, she'd already been out for a run, and was showered and dressed. The silence between them included the ride into work that morning, when she'd wordlessly dropped him at a very imposing, secure-looking Symantec before heading off to Fort Knox.

The funny part was he agreed with Sarah. He didn't want to go to the conference, either, for every reason she could list aloud _and_ all the ones she couldn't. Their conversation, and its suboptimal result, seemed to be the product of the day's events rather than the actual topic.

Their inability to talk about it wasn't making matters any easier.

Judging by her expression that morning—her gaze flicked from tenderness to frustration to a shade short of agent mode in a matter of seconds once he'd stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast—the check-in with Casey didn't go well, either. He was afraid to ask what she found out, if anything.

But, of course, that presupposed that if he asked, she'd answer; it presupposed that they were _talking_ to one another.

_At least we're both fed up with recent events. Maybe if we can finagle a meeting over at Casey's, we can talk. That might help. Worth a shot, at least._

Intent on thinking of a plausible reason to spend time at his neighbor's, Chuck didn't notice that the room had become quiet until someone loudly "ahem"-ed and threw a pen cap at him.

He nearly hit the deck and crawled under the end table next to his chair, but managed to stop himself when he noticed the figure in the doorway—the team's immediate boss, Grant Daniels. Coincidentally, the same man had personally ventured to the Buy More to hire Chuck the Monday before last.

Not so coincidentally, the same man was walking towards Chuck, now that the ex-Herder was actually paying attention. He lightly tossed a folder onto the end table next to Chuck before turning and leaving.

Hesitantly curious, and aware of the 12 sets of eyes on him, Chuck used one finger to lift the cover enough to peek inside.

_All the credentials for the conference? With my name on them? Ohhhhhhhhh no no no..._

He quickly jerked his hand back, rocketing up out of the chair and calling after his boss.

"Whoa, hey, Grant. We—the team, all of us—just talked, and decided that it'd really be more fair if one of them went instead of me."

Already a few steps down the hall, Daniels poked his head back into the room, a semi-bemused expression on his face. His body followed a beat later, leaning up against the doorway to silently assess Chuck.

"Not that I'm not appreciative that you've asked me to go," Chuck quickly amended, unconsciously fixing his tie before sliding his hands into his pockets and shifting a bit from foot to foot. "But, like I was telling your secretary when she called yesterday, these guys are much more qualified, and they've been here longer. And they'd really like to go. That's…all, really."

"I know, she told me," Daniels answered, laid-back, amused expression not changing.

"…oh. I didn't realize that s…wait. If you knew that, then what's with…?" Chuck pointed a confused thumb back over his shoulder, toward the conference credentials.

"I was considering your request—surprising, considering that these guys," nodding his head toward the rest of the room, expression still not changing, but something in his tone did, "dragged you out of bed on a Sunday morning only to fight with you."

Chuck's eyebrows shot through the roof, just as everyone else's head snapped to him to accusingly glare at him. _Wha…how did hear about that? I certainly didn't tell him!_ He was about to issue a placating statement when Daniels continued.

"That aside, I was still considering your request up until 20 minutes ago when the Sunday morning virus mutated. As you rightly noted, the fix suggested by certain of your teammates would have created an exploitable vulnerability. The mutation exploits that vulnerability."

No one uttered a word. Oblivious to the comment about the fix, something wasn't sitting right with Chuck about the mutation; the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

"Everyone except us coded their virus fix in that way," he calmly continued. "We are currently the only antivirus software with a good virus definition. Our stock price has gone up 2% already, and is projected to increase more before the market closes in an hour. So, in considering who to send to the industry's top conference on computer security, you'll excuse me if I send the only person who's coded two sound fixes in as many weeks."

The mention of the other virus did it. Chuck's eyes went wide, and without acknowledging Grant's explanation or the others' super-evil eyes, he bolted out of the lounge, toward his half-cubicle, half-walled office. A few frantic mouse clicks, and one iPhone check, later, his suspicions were confirmed. He fell back into his desk chair, hand over his stunned expression to prevent any audible utterances.

_Don't freak out don't freak out don't freak out don't freak out don't freak out, but OH MY GOD FREAKING OUT. They're…_

_-.-.-.-_

"…the same," he babbled as soon as the call connected. "They're the same people…guys, whatever."

"Come again, Mr. Bartowski?" Beckman asked, a forced undercurrent of tolerance evident in her query. Casey seconded the general's sentiments with a low growl-grunt.

_Is absolutely no one with me on this one? _

Chuck risked a quick glimpse over at Sarah as he took a few calming breaths. She was standing between him and Casey, all of them standing in Casey's front room. The way that she met his gaze full on with a knowing look, combined with a single raised eyebrow, implied that she was already there. He took one more deep breath and forced himself to focus on the TV in Casey's apartment to get the other two caught up.

"The virus. The people that wrote the one from two weekends ago—the one that stole files? They wrote the one I've been dealing with since Sunday. There are some really unique chunks of code in both of them…identical chunks, actually—the stuff that Reed wrote. I've never seen it anywhere else. I noticed it on Sunday and Monday, but it didn't click until today. Until the mutation."

The general was suddenly listening with rapt attention, and was looking at Chuck intently, waiting for him to continue. Sarah waited as well, recognizing the Chuck-pondering face. Casey, far less patient, went for the unsubtle prod.

"I take it that's bad, Bartowksi?"

Chuck looked around Sarah to shoot Casey a look, sarcasm dripping from his words.

"Very good, Casey!—it _is_ bad." He ignored the menacing scowl from the NSA agent, voice becoming thoughtful and slightly worried. "The new virus, its mutation…the whole thing does weird things."

"What kind of weird things, Chuck?" Sarah asked, noticing the shift and not caring for it.

"Eh…the first version was just a line of text. White 8-bit letters, black screen, and then randomly restarted the computer, leaving it no worse for wear after. Harmless. This new version has an 8-bit drawing of a watch face below the text. The pseudo-image's size is bigger than it should be. It's…a placeholder, or something. Like using a fire hose to fill up a water bottle—overkill. Big time."

_Though I can't figure out what that means_, he thought with some frustration, itching his head with a displeased squint, falling back into Casey's chair without thinking. After he had noticed the weirdness, he had spent the rest of the work day trying to figure it out…and was no closer to solving the mystery than he'd been at the start…

…but ominous knuckle cracking from his right pulled Chuck out of his reverie. _…oh God, _he realized, _I'm sitting in Casey's chair. The chair the chair. Like-a-king's-throne the chair._ Slightly fearing for his well-being, one particularly loud pop spurred him to disclose the lone tidbit of information that he'd gleaned that day.

"I think it might mutate again. But I don't know to what. I don't even know why it changed in the first place—the thing restarts computers. It doesn't even steal anything, like the last one did."

Sarah let out a small, tired sigh, heard only by Chuck and Casey. Forgetting about the Chuck in the chair, Casey added a small grunt of sympathy, and Chuck simply let his head fall back in agreement.

"If the authors are indeed the same, this might have national security implications," the general finally said.

_No shit_, Sarah thought. From the look on Casey's face and Chuck's snort, they were thinking something similar. _At least we're all on the same page for that one._

Casey was the next to speak up.

"Yeah, well, it might not be a problem after all. Tracked down almost all the names discovered at Reed Associates. They're all getting together this weekend for a little chat. Could take them all down, force them to stop…whatever he's talking about," jerking a disdainful thumb over at Chuck, earning him an eye roll from the younger man.

Beckman immediately replied, eager to hear some good news.

"Do it, Major: go to this meeting, interrupt it, and capture its attendees. I'll leave the details up to you, but I expect to be briefed fully once you have come up with a plan. However, your first priority—as you have taken to reminding me _repeatedly_ this week—is to keep your new covers intact. Do I make myself clear?"

Both agents answered in the affirmative. Chuck started to give a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement, but the call ended as he was in mid-wave. The call had no sooner ended before Chuck was pulling Sarah down onto the arm of the chair. She couldn't help but look at him curiously.

"…you know, Casey's standing right over there," she offered after a moment, simultaneously surprised and secretly happy at the borderline bold move.

"He won't do anything to me. He likes this chair too much to get blood all over it."

"Don't count on it Bartowski," Casey growled, taking one step closer to the chair. "You blew up my car today. AGAIN. And if you and Walker weren't sl…"

Chuck cleared his throat as Sarah cut Casey off in mid-sentence.

"Don't even, Casey." Her tone was deadly serious, as was the glare she shot him. "One minute, alright?"

He gave another small growl, but surprisingly acquiesced, heading into the kitchen to clamor around for 60 seconds—he _had_ implicitly pushed for them to be together, for everyone's sake…and for everyone's sanity. _Anything else might undo all my hard work, and I am _not_ Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil damages my calm._

Watching Casey's tactical retreat, she leaned into Chuck with a long sigh, letting her eyes fall shut as some of the tension drained from her body. He tugged her into a more comfortable position, with the end result being her across his lap, with her head on his shoulder.

Neither moved or spoke for the better part of their allotted 60 seconds, both content with the tension-reducing silence serving as the apology for any recent, craziness-induced behavior.

"So, not to upset our very nice, quiet, Casey-free moment…" Chuck reluctantly started.

_Here it comes_, she thought, opening her eyes to calmly look at him, pointedly ignoring the particularly loud clang of pots from the kitchen.

"…but you're going to have to pull some of your kickass spy stuff if I need to be on this mission over the weekend, because they're **making** me go to San Francisco. I _tried_ to get out of it, believe me."

She didn't have the energy to be mad at him, but had enough for ever-so-slightly annoyed.

"Exactly _just_ how hard did you tr…"

"Alright, Walker, time's up," Casey loudly announced, walking back into the room. Catching the tail end of their conversation, he stopped in place. The sudden change in Casey's gait prompted Sarah to sit upright and re-perch on the arm of the chair. She did so fast enough to see Casey's eyes grow suspicious.

"…did Romeo just say San Francisco?"

Unencumbered, Chuck popped up to his knees and turned around in the chair, putting his back toward the TV.

"Hey, I'm sitting right here, you could just ask!"

"Quiet, moron. Walker, did he say San Francisco?"

_What the hell?_, she thought._ Am I missing something, for the umpteenth time this week?_

"Yes, he said San Francisco. Why?"

Casey folded his arms over his chest, and coolly regarded her.

"Why San Francisco?"

Waving his hands around wildly, Chuck answered in Sarah's place.

"Helllllllllllllllllo, I'm right here!"

"He's supposed to go to a conference for work," she answered, not liking where Casey's questions were going. Spy senses were starting to seriously tingle, driving her to stand up and mimic Casey's stance. "_Why_, Casey?"

"Our virus friends are meeting in San Francisco this weekend. Under the auspices of a computer security conference."

Sarah could feel some of the color drain from her face as the sickening feel in the pit of her stomach took root.

"My conference?" Chuck's voice had jumped two octaves. It seemed to remind the two spies that he was in the room, because they both slowly turned to face him.

Noticing his partner's pale complexion, Casey answered to give her time to recover.

"Dipstick, you're not going anywhere this weekend for work. You're with us."

_Damn right he is_, Sarah mentally agreed. _He's not leaving our sight._

Instead of looking pleased, Chuck looked increasingly puzzled.

"How's that going to work? All the Fort Knox people think you two can't leave LA this weekend."

Casey's eyes bugged out at Chuck's disclosure, face turning an interesting shade of red.

"WHAT? How the hell do they know that you were _THINKING_ about going anywhere! And why the hell didn't I know about any of this! Walker, did it occur to you that it might be a very very LARGE PROBLEM?"

"God, don't even ask," Sarah said wearily. After their argument-by-proxy last night over the same topic, she hadn't brought it up when she'd gone to talk to Casey. After the argument, though, she was pretty sure that Chuck was going to get out of it, eliminating the need to bring any of it up.

_Could anything else possibly happen_, she thought. _This man is going to give me a heart attack before this week's over._

Next thing she knew, Chuck was standing up next to her, urgently calling her name. He had one arm wrapped around her back, as if he was getting ready to catch her, with the other stroking her cheek.

"Sarah! Sarah?" Her eyes came into focus, and relief flooded his own. "You OK?"

Confused, she noticed Casey hide the slightest bit of worry.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Did I miss something?"

_Like how it is that we're standing this close and Casey's not making any move to comment or shoot anyone?_

"Sar…you…Casey's been talking to you for the past 30 seconds. You totally spaced. You sure you're fine?"

Surprised, she took a cautious breath and let it out, checking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing felt out of place.

"Like I said, I'm f…" Chuck's description of her behavior registered then. "Wait, what did you say?"

"That you spaced out for a minute…?" he cautiously offered, not sure how to interpret her tone.

She stared at him for a moment more, the look of dreadful clarity intensifying across her face, just as it had in the gala conference room and at the fountain before.

_Oh God. No. Not again. Please let me be wrong…_

"Uh oh, what?" Chuck asked with trepidation, noticing the look.

"Casey," she fired off, pointing at one of his computers, "I need you to get the security footage from Shady's Glen. It's a restaurant down the street from the firm." Wheeling back to Chuck, she pulled him toward Casey's other computer, sitting him down and facing him toward the monitor. Out of habit, he pulled the keyboard within typing range.

"Chuck, I need you to hack our server again."

She noticed a slight hesitation in Casey's typing before it resumed its normal cadence. Chuck, however, couldn't help but turn around to look at her.

"Why am I hacking Fort Knox's server again when we know it can be done?" he slowly asked.

Spinning him around again to face the computer, she kept her hands on his shoulders to prevent him from turning around again while she quickly explained.

"It was your comment about spacing out. Marilyn had the exact same expression."

She could feel Chuck try to turn, but held him still and backtracked to explain as fast as she could.

"It was after the presentations yesterday, when the others were ready to kill one another. Someone brought up Justin. She had the spaced look." Sarah had noticed only because it struck her as out of place. Not to mention that she was still trying to stay out of the fray, at that point. "Trust me, the look's produced by thoughts of a significant other. They were at least dating."

"Ugh, lady feelings," Casey muttered, noticing the goofy grin on Chuck's face and Sarah's slight smile. In hyper-focus mode, she rolled her eyes at Casey while gesturing at the freeze frame of the secluded corner booth displayed on Casey's monitor, providing the next link of her theory.

"Marilyn-and-Justin as a couple is problem, because the only person Chuck flashed on was this one," pointing toward the tall man seated at the table in the freeze frame, "Tim Cook. Everything suggests that he's not Fulcrum. Not concerning. But, he also worked with Justin. That's not a coincidence, bec…"

"Yeah yeah yeah, Walker I'm there," Casey interrupted with a slam of the mouse in aggravation, unintentionally starting the video. "If Marilyn was dating Justin, and this guy's friends with Justin, and if Justin was Fulcrum, it suggests that Marilyn's involved in something, and so is this guy and everyone else at the table."

"Hey hey hey, guys, you're going to want to see this," Chuck stammered after Casey had finished, pointing at his own screen.

Displayed were the damning emails back and forth between Marilyn and Tim about the surveillance. Without being asked, Chuck hacked into Justin's account, providing the super-smoking gun—the emails between Justin and Fulcrum about the same topic.

It wasn't the intelligence community grapevine that was interested in why Sarah and Casey were in LA. Fulcrum was. Apparently with a few unaware participants.

_This is totally, definitely, super super super BAD BAD BAD_, Chuck thought, but was prevented from saying anything aloud when talk of San Francisco unexpectedly piped over the speakers from the restaurant security video. Chuck looked over at the screen in time to see the man who'd just offered to 'call his friends' look right at one of the security cameras.

That triggered the flash.

"That one," Chuck leaned over to point at Casey's screen to point at the man. "His retinal scan's in the Intersect. Fulcrum. Fulcrum Fulcrum Fulcrum." Casey and Sarah exchanged knowing glances, but froze in place as Marilyn rattled off Chuck's entire, no-longer-secret itinerary.

No one moved.

"Uh, am I allowed to freak out now?" he asked nervously.

Silence.

"Huh, let me see if I get this," Casey started, pausing the video after the trio exchanged sinister looks, instantly marking them all as Fulcrum. He turned his chair to face Sarah with a displeased scowl-growl.

"Your coworker is a traitor who just unknowingly sold out your boyfriend to Fulcrum. Your boyfriend, _coincidentally_, happens to be the Intersect, which is why we just told him that he needs to come with us to San Francisco this weekend, since Fulcrum seems to be gunning for him because you're cover marrying the dummy. But, oh, wait, we can't be in San Francisco this weekend, because then we'll blow our new covers because of _your_ pain-in-the-ass cover job!"

He paused before ending the sentence on a faux cheerful note that was more sarcastic than anything else.

"Did I miss anything, or does that hit all the big points?"

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Sarah stoically massaged her temples. _Had to ask, didn't you, Walker—of _course_ something else could happen. I hate this new cover. And I hate Fulcrum. And I hate Marilyn. And I hate this wedding. And I hate San Francisco…_ Her litany silently continued on.

Chuck's knee started bouncing up and down under the desk as Casey's question remained unanswered. Unable to take the quiet anymore—_Or Sarah's death grip on my shoulder. Holy crap!_—he decided to break the silence.

"Sooooooooooooooooooooooo, Team Chuck. Chuck's Team. The Team of Chuck. I think we might need to figure out a plan. A _really_ really good one…yet again. Suggestions?"


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Miracles might happen, but didn't this time. I do have two bits of news for you upstanding folk—some, in fact, might deem it good news, though I think that's questionable for all sorts of reasons. First, work calmed down this past Friday (on schedule [!]—the miracle that did happen), which means updates __will__ be less sporadic. Second, I revisited my plot outlines and have discovered that we're around halfway done—the story's in better shape than I thought. (From a completion standpoint; quality-wise, we all know the cause is lost.) Get ready for some potentially amusing Team Chuck/Chuck's team/Team of Chuck action, folks._

_You all have been unbelievably awesome to the _n_th degree, not to mention understanding and simply _patient_ through all of the work insanity, and I'm rather appreciative of that fact. "Thank you" doesn't seem adequate, but it's all I have right now. Happy holidays, and I truly hope they're pleasant for you and yours._

_The tripartite McDuck disclaimer remains in effect: I apologize for any typos, and they'll be fixed as soon as they're found. Typos in the previous chapters will hopefully disappear over the next few weeks as I start going back to reread/edit/clarify. Next, a series of italicized words or sentences tend to indicate an individual's thoughts. Last, but certainly not least, I don't own _Chuck_. I wouldn't have to grovel and apologize endlessly about my day job if I did._

-.-.-.-

**Day 12: Tuesday**

Oh, did they _ever_ have a plan.

It was epic, really: the one plan to rule them all. It potentially solved all their immediate problems. The Plan comprehensively spanned six days—Tuesday to Sunday—and two Southern California metropolitan areas—Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It also created quite a few problems. Notably, it was unbelievably risky, too—the equivalent of punting a hornets' nest whose state of occupancy was unknown.

Chuck hadn't been a big fan of the risk part. From what he could tell, Sarah hadn't been, either. But, Casey was right—it was their best, and only, option…

…not to mention their most complex option, so much so that Chuck felt compelled to ask if he could take notes halfway through the planning session. _The thing's so detailed that it covered not one, but TWO whiteboards!_, he silently screamed to the universe as he wordlessly stepped through the Morgan Door hours later, offering Sarah a helping hand as she followed suit.

Still incredibly pale, she offered him a weak smile of thanks for surveillance's sake. Gathering up her things, she headed toward the bathroom soon after, offering a few token words—again, for surveillance—to express her intent to clean up and leave "the note" for Ellie that The Plan called for.

Her weak smile and handful of words constituted more of a response than the one she gave him when he'd made his note-taking request. At that point, she was still simultaneously fighting to keep her emotions in check and fighting not pass out. Her eyes had flicked to him briefly, immediately snapping back to the whiteboards.

The brief glimpse he'd gotten of her internal war through the window of her eyes rendered him speechless. His chest constricted on its own accord, coupled with unexpected twinges of pain. The sickening feeling soon stretched from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his ears.

Chuck had barely registered the death-glare from Casey that served as the definitive answer. He'd been too busy trying to get a full lungful of air.

Sarah wasn't the only one fighting to stay conscious after that.

Pulling his bedroom window shut, Chuck unceremoniously collapsed into the neighboring chair, pulling at the bandage on the side of his head. _Please, oh please, oh please_, he thought, absently flicking the ball of gauze and tape somewhere and letting his head rest on the wall, _let me remember the parts I'm supposed to, and PLEASE don't let me screw anything up_.

Looking down at his chest with a sigh, he eyed his tie. Somehow, he'd pulled its knot so tight over the course of the meeting that he seriously doubted anything short of scissors would allow him to take it off. Chuck tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling to think, using his own mini-Gordian (tie) knot as a distraction from the bigger, plan-based one.

_Let's see if I can run through the whole thing. From the beginning…_

A nonchalant, two-word statement of Casey's started the whole thing. Casey had no sooner said the words than Sarah had paled. From there, things went downhill, but objectively, The Plan was predicated on four indisputable facts:

First, Team Chuck was being watched, their every move watched and every word overheard. The only frequented safe place to move or talk, fortuitously, was Casey's apartment.

Second, Marilyn was unwittingly acting as a Fulcrum informant. By all indications, she was planning to continue the role into the near future.

Third, Fulcrum wanted Chuck to gain leverage over Sarah because of her new job. Despite their most recent bungled kidnapping attempt, they wanted Chuck alive.

Fourth, Fulcrum knew Chuck's exact plans for the weekend. They also knew that Casey and Sarah weren't accompanying him and had no official, non-Intersect-related reason to do so.

Along with the knowledge that Fulcrum, the watchers, and Marilyn were unaware of Team Chuck's intelligence breakthrough, combining the four gave birth to The Plan and its seven stages.

_And of the seven, I can't remember the details of any of the stages right now_, Chuck thought_, other than the overall gist of the thing. Spectacular. _He shook his head back and forth, trying to shake the details into place to no avail. Neither did smacking the uninjured side of his head with the palm of his hand.

_See_, _I _knew _I needed to take notes. Let this be a lesson to you, John Casey. Do not mess with engineers and our need to write everything down! You could have at least let me name the stages after…the Seven Dwarfs…or something._

What Chuck knew for sure was that he and Sarah were responsible for Stage I. The involved, emotional discussion in the courtyard that they'd just finished satisfied that requirement. Both his and Sarah's emotional exhaustion would be for naught, though, unless Beckman approved The Plan. Casey had called their beloved General Queen Bee as soon as the couple had "left to go home" for the night.

He was probably still going through all the details with her. The thing covered two whiteboards, after all.

_I wonder how Beckman's taking it. It seems like she could go either way…though probably against. I don't think she's going to like all of u…_

A single rap on the window jarred Chuck back to the present, the jerk in his motions causing the knot he'd nearly undone to retighten. Masking his annoyance, Chuck stood to open the window, Casey standing outside an apologetic expression of debatable sincerity to the well-attuned eye.

"Hey _John_," taking particular pleasure in emphasizing Casey's first name and watching the subtle twitch from his handler, "did we forget something at your place?"

"No," Casey replied through clenched teeth, "just wanted to remind you that you're going to have to borrow Ellie's car tomorrow, since your…incident's left mine out of commission."

Chuck hid his surprise—and his response to Casey's implied threat for the Vic—with a fit of involuntary coughing.

_Holy crap, Beckman's going with it?_

If the general hadn't gone for it, Casey would have reminded Chuck to borrow Awesome's car. Chuck would have then corrected Casey—he was borrowing Ellie's car, not Awesome's; Awesome's transmission was a standard, and Chuck couldn't drive stick to save his life.

But, that contingency didn't matter.

Beckman heard the entire Plan, and _approved_ of their course of action.

He was shocked enough that the coughing continued, unbidden.

"Yeah, thanks," Chuck finally stammered once he was able to speak. "I remembered…well," one more cough snuck out, "Sarah remembered. She left a note for Ellie in the kitchen, asking El if she wouldn't mind carpooling with Awesome until Sarah and I deal with the whole car situation. She's always offering, so I think we'll be fine."

His response was good enough for Casey, who muttered a good night before stalking away without another word. Chuck pulled the window shut again and thumped his head on the cool pane of glass a few times, hands coming to rest flat above his head.

"Sarah Walker," he muttered to the window, "I swear to God, if I weren't so in love with you, this might be one of the crappiest weeks of my life."

"…what was that?"

Chuck turned his head enough to catch a glimpse of Sarah, looking a bit less pale and freshly scrubbed, standing a step or two inside the closed bedroom door. Using his hands to push off the window, Chuck examined the new tie knot and resumed pulling at it while lowering himself to sit on the bed's edge.

"It was John. Wanted to remind us that I have to borrow Ellie's car tomorrow."

"…no, the part _after_ that, Chuck."

He gave her a quick puzzled look before victoriously raising his fists in the air, glancing back down at his now-unknotted tie. Tugging it from his collar in one fluid motion, he sent it shooting across the room before answering, his puzzled expression returning as he fell back onto the bed with one or two bounces.

"That this week is crappy?"

The bed dipped as she stretched out on her side, but only her continued silence prompted Chuck to crane his head in her direction. He found himself on the receiving end of one of the most intense, blistering looks of all time. Quickly replaying all his words verbatim, Chuck's eyes went wide when he realized _exactly _what Sarah had overheard. _OH MY GOD, I really said that aloud? Ohhhhhh boy. She proooooooooooobably didn't need to hear that tonight, on top of everything else…_

"I believe it was a declaration of love," he tried, shifting to his right side to face her. "Nothing you weren't already well aware of."

He'd kept his voice deliberately light to give her the escape route she was looking for. What he hadn't banked on was the temperature of the room skyrocketing and the sheer depth of the silent communication that passed between them.

Being aware of something and hearing something declared aloud were apparently two distinctly different phenomena.

Tension crackling, each ended up moving toward the other simultaneously. Sarah's lips crashed into Chuck's as she pushed him on to his back; he was pulling her over him at the same time. Events rapidly headed in a very heated, deterministic, and deserved direction. Appearing to take the lead, Chuck flipped them towards the middle of the bed, Sarah now pinned under him. She was surprised, though, when he released her lips and continued to roll, to the point of rolling right off the bed without pause.

"Chuck, wh…?" she gasped, propping herself up on her elbows to gain a clear line of sight.

His head popped back into view immediately, and with a few orienting eye sweeps, he scrambled to his feet, lunging at the bedroom door. Clicking the lock into place, Chuck trotted toward the Morgan Door.

"I haven't seen Morgan since Sunday," he started, opening and shutting the window to confirm that it was securely latched and locked, "which is forever in Morgan time. I wouldn't be surprised if _he_," overemphasizing the word, "magically appeared tonight." He shot Sarah a quick, loaded glance over his shoulder to convey the bigger point.

She was already ahead of him, fiddling with the clock radio's volume to interfere with the watcher's audio surveillance. Chuck squared off with the window again to fiddle with the blinds and curtains, ensuring that they covered the _entire_ window, blocking any simple visual surveillance.

His mind raced out of nervousness once he crossed back to the foot of the bed, fighting to divest himself of his suit coat. _Let's see, who could "he" represent—who could interrupt this? Morgan, definitely. Or Casey. Or Ellie…Awesome…Fulcrum, the watchers, Ft. Knox, Symantec, the CIA, NSA, Bryce Larkin, wedding cake bakers, candlestick makers…and I'm reciting nursery rhymes. Great._

In running through his list, he'd managed to hopelessly twist the coat inside-out, pinning his arms inside. Flailing them about wildly for several seconds, Chuck stopped when he noticed that Sarah was watching every flail with blatant amusement.

"Little help, here?" he finally asked, raising his jacket-tangled arms in defeat.

Sarah readily complied with a grin, and had it off in seconds, almost pulling Chuck back onto the bed before he remembered something.

"Oh crap, wait wait wait…" Standing back up quickly, he grabbed the recently discarded coat and launched it toward the wall lamp above his desk, conveniently obscuring Casey's surveillance camera in the process. He captured her lips in another blistering kiss before she could acknowledge his good toss or foresight.

"You alright with all of…_this_?" he ghosted against her lips once they broke apart for air, indicating the "this" with an all-encompassing eyebrow raise, meaning clear.

Burying her face in his shoulder while nimbly working at the buttons of his dress shirt, she answered truthfully, albeit in a strained tone.

"Working on it. You have no idea how much you're helping."

That was sufficient. No further words were spoken. The night was long. Neither cell phone rang. There were no visitors.

And, as Chuck had hoped, the morning certainly looked better.

-.-.-.-

Outside, in the courtyard, a watcher hid behind the oddly shaped hedge, hunched over a thermal imager aimed at Casa Bartowski. So engrossed in watching what was unfolding inside the bedroom that the watcher's surprise was plain as a hand suddenly shot out of the darkness and hauled him the man to his feet. Pinned against one of the courtyard's walls a beat later, the watcher's head madly swiveled in an attempt to spot the attacker.

"Evening," Casey growled as he stepped into view, ripping off the watcher's ski mask with his free hand while his eyes assessed the man and his not-so-hidden perch. Catching a glimpse of the thermal imager's display, the NSA agent recoiled in shock once the image registered. Punting the imager clear across the courtyard in a disgust-induced rage, Casey slammed Ski Mask into the wall hard for good measure, moving his forearm across the pinned man's windpipe to apply a bit more pressure than was warranted.

If the gravity of the situation wasn't sufficiently conveyed by the punting or the slamming, the silencer-equipped gun that materialized in Casey's hand helped. Its barrel being rammed into a now-terrified Ski Mask sealed the deal—the situation was clearly serious.

_Damn it, Bartowski, _Casey thought, one of the veins in his neck visibly pulsing as he pushed the gun into the malleable skin of Ski Mask's forehead. _I am going to beat your scrawny, Intersected-ass to hell this weekend when Walker's not around, because I still have to say all this shit, despite you blowing up my shiny car this week AND giving me a very real trigger for post-traumatic stress that will haunt me for years to come AND being a general pain in the ass._

The "shit" that Casey had to say was, like every other occurrence that night _except_ what was currently going on in Chuck's bedroom, part of The Plan. Yet, it was because of the unplanned events in the bedroom that Casey found himself modifying his planned speech—it came across far better and more convincingly than it would have otherwise.

"I have no idea who the hell you are," Casey began, daring Ski Mask to interrupt as he fought to keep his voice below a roar, "but I just saw something that I never, _ever_ wanted to see in my entire life. No amount of brain bleach is going get rid of the image of one of my best friends doing a very enthusiastic mambo with his fiancée."

With the tendons in his neck taut, rippling in sync with his pulsing vein, Casey stopped talking. Face contorting into a terrifying sneer, he cocked the gun and twisted it against the watcher's forehead as he spat out the sentence that applied to Chuck and Ski Mask equally.

"I should kill you."

_If only for making me call nitwit over there my best friend. _Casey's thoughts dissolved into one, large unintelligible growl, laced with curse words in several languages.

"But," he continued, trying to rein in the anger that had, without a doubt, permanently damaged his calm center, "I think you're involved with some of the recent _events_ involving Chuck..."

Clearly aware of the "recent events" that Casey was referring to, Ski Mask's eyes went even wider than they had at the mention of possible death. The man tried to vigorously shake his head and voice his innocence, but he was silenced with a single, sharp elbow to the head.

"Stop your whimpering," Casey continued. "As I was saying, because I think you're involved, I'm going to spare you…for now. You and I are going to have a little chat, and depending how well you do, we'll see if you live or not."

Ski Mask received a brutal pistol whip to the back of the head before Casey's statement could register, crumpling to the ground immediately. Clenching his fists once and letting out a final, short growl, Casey holstered his gun and hauled the unconscious watcher back to his apartment.

Kicking the door shut behind him, the NSA agent eyed the man sprawled across the wood floor of his foyer. Oddly, the sight was calming enough to prompt a team-oriented thought as Casey advanced toward Ski Mask.

_Stage II complete._

-.-.-.-

**Day 13: Wednesday**

The doors to the Buy More swooshed open, ushering in a late morning breeze and the former supervisor of the Nerd Herd. Chuck's gait was the same one he'd used every day for six years; if not for his appearance—a tie-less, striped long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans—it would be unapparent that his place of employment had changed.

Yesterday's suit coat bunched in one hand, Chuck hovered a few feet into the store and ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair, slowly letting out a breath. The sights were still familiar: Big Mike had waltzed into the manager's office moments before, box of donuts in hand. Emmett stood near the front checkout counter, trying his best to look knowledgeable and imposing as he glared toward the center of the store, where the Herders, plus Morgan, stood clustered around the Nerd Herd desk. Unsurprisingly, they were already slacking a mere two hours into the work day. Casey marched between the industrial-sized refrigerators and the Beast Masters, switching between assessing potential customers and assessing potential threats effortlessly.

A dozen or so customers were sprinkled around the store, a handful within striking distance of the Nerd Herd counter alone, but Morgan paid them no mind once he'd spotted Chuck. Instead of trying to make a sale, he was bounding down the main aisle, towards the entrance.

Letting out one more breath slowly, Chuck forced himself to focus. Compared to last night, he was much more at peace with what had to happen…for several reasons, some of which he refused to allow himself to recall, lest his thoughts become indefinitely derailed.

Being at peace, however, didn't stop him from clearing his throat a few times before willing his feet to move in Morgan's direction.

_No freaking out. We've got this, we've got this…the plan will work, the plan will work, the plan will work…_

Chuck's mental chant was cut short when Morgan collided into him. What Morgan gave Chuck wasn't quite a hug—it was more of a combination hug-chest bump-shoulder whack-back pat. Before Chuck could process the flurry of movement, the smaller man was steering him toward the employee lounge while speaking.

"Dude, did they fired you? They did, didn't they, _bastards_!—they fired you. That's…GREAT! I mean, Chuck, I haven't seen you in days. DAYS. That's like…hundreds of thousands of seconds! There's got to be a law against best friend deprivation. Not to worry, man, Emmett hasn't filled your job yet. I bet you he'll give it right back. Hey, Emmett! Chuck here wa…"

Watching Emmett slowly pivot and shoot him a Machiavellian look was enough to snap Chuck out of his slight stupor. _Where the hell did that come from! And, crap, Morgan's not pointing us toward the lounge, he's pointing us toward EMMETT. Must stop! _He cut in before Morgan could say anything else.

"Chuck here waaaaaaaaants to say hi," accompanying the far-too-cheerful greeting with a jerky nod that would have given anyone else whiplash. "So: hi, Emmett! Great to see you…buddy."

Grabbing Morgan's arm, Chuck pulled him toward the employees only door, hissing under his breath while avoiding Emmett's far-too-curious gaze.

"What are you doing—I don't need my old job! Symantec didn't fire me! I'm gainfully employed!"

He screeched to a halt near the checkout counter by Big Mike's office, Morgan still in tow, and tried to calm down. _Breathe: in…out….in…out._ After a few more breaths, Chuck considered his best friend and tried for a minimum of one sentence that wouldn't be punctuated by an exclamation mark.

"Morgan. Just…why…j…_what_ would give you the idea that they fired me?"

The current Buy More employee thoughtfully pondered the question—_Oh my God_, Chuck thought as Morgan folded his arms into a dramatic thinking pose, _he has to THINK about it!—_before replying.

"Well, Charles Irving Bartowski, you seemed a little…down," Morgan solemnly stated, completely serious in his assessment. "Some may claim that you looked a little lost, in fact. Did some ninja murder your computer again?"

"HA, no, Morgan—my computer is alive and well, last I checked. If I have another computer ninjacide, though, you'll be my first call. You were _such _a big help last time."

Tossing his suit coat on the checkout counter and hopping up next to it, Chuck couldn't help but visualize the smaller man trying to defend his computer's honor with a putter. It produced a few chuckles.

"I was instrumental last time in your computer's defense!" Morgan pointedly argued, noticing Chuck's laughter and climbing up on the counter alongside him. "Besides, between me and your smoking hot future copilot of choice, there's no way such a tragedy will happen again."

Alluding to Sarah induced a series of emotions from Chuck: irritation and exasperation at the manner of reference to unabashed joy and happiness before settling at pensive worry.

_Just say it_, the Casey voice in his head grunted. _Say it before you chicken out._

"It's funny you mention Sarah, actually…" Chuck started nervously.

"Oh, God, it's her, isn't it?" Morgan interjected, taking the beginning of Chuck's statement and myriad expressions to mean something else entirely. "That's why you had the mopey face. Sarah broke off the engagement? She broke off the engagement!" He clapped Chuck supportively on the shoulder. "Dude, I am _here_ for you—24-hour Call of Duty marathon. Halo. Strip clubs. They'll fix everything."

"What?" Chuck sputtered, angling himself on the counter to look at Morgan. "No! Just, no, we're still engaged."

Morgan began to assure Chuck that being dumped by someone like Sarah was an honor, one many men would aspire to achieve when Chuck finally clamped his hand over Morgan's mouth. Preempting Morgan's protests, Chuck spit out Casey's infamous two words from last night, adding a few more of his own.

"We're eloping. San Francisco, this weekend. Be my best man?"

Chuck did a quick self-evaluation, ignoring the muffled screams of shock emanating from his countermate.

_Huh, everything feels intact, and I don't feel like collapsing. _It was a marked improvement over last night. _Other than the whole "if this doesn't work, we might end up dead" thing, that wasn't so bad. _

Chuck hadn't noticed that Morgan had squirmed away in the interim…until his ThunderDome voice boomed over the store's PA system.

"CHUCK BARTOWSKI! Thiiiiiiiiiiiis weekennnnnnnnnnd: youuuuuuuu areeeeeeeeeee gettinggggggggggggg…"

A quick pull of the microphone's cord placed the device solely in Chuck's possession before Morgan could finish the last word.

"Morgan," he hissed, "do you _not_ know what 'elope' means? Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Chuck grabbed a handful of polo collar to pull Morgan back into whispering range. "_No one_ can know, man. I'm serious. Ellie doesn't—_can't_—know. She'd kill us if she found out, and we don't want to upstage her wedding. It's a long story, kind of last minute, and you're going to have to take the weekend off if you're game."

From the rapid series of excited punches he was getting in the shoulder, Chuck guessed that Morgan was very, very game, a notion affirmed by the smaller man's words seconds later.

"DUDE!" he shouted, earning him a stern look from Chuck. Readjusting his volume, Morgan tried again. "Dude, this…is…awesome—I'm your best man! I mean, you getting married isn't so awesome, because I'm losing you to your smok…"

"Morgan!" _Regardless of its uncanny accuracy, enough with the smoking hot copilot line!_

"I know, I know—she's really awesome enough to surpass copilot status. She's more like...another smoking hot wingman!"

Launching himself toward off the counter and toward Emmett before Chuck could definitively end the _Top Gun_ analogy, Morgan loudly announced to the assistant manager a few seconds later that he needed at _least _Saturday and Sunday off for some "guy bonding time." He coupled the request with a conspicuous air nudge-wink over his shoulder at Chuck once Emmett turned to the computer to check Morgan's vacation days and work schedule.

Chuck couldn't help roll his eyes as he slid off the counter. _Man, and I thought I was bad at being a spy. Nice to know that Morgan'd be worse at it than I am. _Attempting to shrug on his suit coat, Chuck didn't notice Casey eerily materialize next to him.

"Need a 'little help' with your jacket, there?" Casey asked a polite tone, watching Morgan's antics with disdainful curiosity.

Mouth agape and cheeks slightly burning, Chuck's head snapped toward the faux-smiling Casey. _…oh, you son of a…_, he thought. _You totally watched the surveillance tape! I knew it! You couldn't resist! That is…just…wow, sixteen shades of holy hell creepy…_

Clearing his throat and tugging once to cause the coat to fall into place, Chuck focused on Morgan's interactions with Emmett. Emmett was haughtily reading something from one of the computer terminals, Morgan looking increasingly confused.

"I'm good, John. Thanks for the offer."

"Oh, I bet you are, killer." Casey punctuated his statement with a forceful nudge in the arm before continuing what would constitute 'normal' workplace banter among guys. "Big plans this weekend?"

"Uh, well, 'big' is a…big word. It encompasses an awful lot. But, yes, I have plans. How about you?"

"Nothing of consequ…"

Casey trailed off as Morgan's shrill voice echoed around the store, occasional words punctuated by loud thumps on the counter for emphasis.

"What do you mean I have NO VACATION DAYS! That's impossible! I haven't used any since Sbarro named that pizza after me! THE COMPUTER ATE MY VACATION‼‼!"

The wince snuck out before Chuck could stop it. Hacking into the Buy More mainframe to temporarily wipeout Morgan's vacation days was necessary for Stage III to succeed…or at least that's what Casey had told Chuck last night before holding his head inches from the monitor and forcing him to do it.

_I'm going to best friend hell. Or federal prison, with all the outrageously illegal hacking I've done lately. Wouldn't Beckman just love that—an incarcerated Intersect._

As the argument between Emmett and Morgan escalated, Chuck slowly turned to Casey and gave him what—hopefully—looked like a thoughtful, meaningful glance after sparing a disappointed one in Morgan's direction.

"So, how'd you like it if your weekend plans became a lot more consequential, big guy?"

Casey was all too aware of the lone ballcap-clad customer who'd been hovering near the washing machines a few feet away far too long for the customer's demographic profile. _Perfect_, Casey thought, answering Chuck in a conspiratorial whisper easily audible to Ballcap.

"Start talking. Consequential, how?"

-.-.-.-

_A/N2: Figured this may be the better place to ask this: Would some sort of plot outline (e.g., brief day-by-day summary of events) be helpful to keep track of the entire story arc's events, or am I still in work mode (which means overthinking), implying that such an outline is ridiculous and wouldn't be helpful?_


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Had my relatives informed me that they were dropping by to stay for a week during the holidays, this chapter would have been out sooner. Seeing as they did not, I apologize for the chapter's almost lateness. Thank yous for the last chapter will soon be on their way. It goes without saying that you all continue to be inexplicably awesome, and deserve to be thanked. _

_For those of you who said a brief plot outline would be useful, it's linked up in my author profile as the homepage. Do _not _feel obligated to read it over, and excuse the page's simplicity (didn't want to spend a lot of time on it). The outline definitely doesn't cover everything—most of the Chuck/Sarah relationship milestones, for example, aren't included—but I tried to hit the big plot points as a refresher._

_Disclaimers, oft and previously stated, still apply. _

-.-.-.-

**Day 13: Wednesday**

Late morning sun beating down on the sprawling cityscape outside her office window, Sarah tossed a pad of paper and pen onto her desk with a restrained degree of disgust as she walked around it to sit in her desk chair. Palms immediately rising to massage her temples, she took slow, calming breaths in an attempt to resist the urge to shoot any office furniture.

She wasn't quite seething with anger, but she was pretty close.

_If I have to sit through one more meeting like that, I'll just shoot one of them instead of furniture_, she humorlessly thought, slowly rotating in her chair to look out at the city.

The meeting in question was the "planning" meeting at Fort Knox to discuss Chuck's travel plans for the upcoming conference and the housecleaning that would occur while he was out of town. With the conference running from Thursday morning to Saturday evening, Chuck's departing flight to San Francisco was an oddly early one later today. He then returned to LA mid-afternoon on Sunday.

_Never mind that Fulcrum knew about Chuck's flights before we did, for Christ's sake. _A Casey-like growl escaped._ God, if Marilyn weren't such a big part of this damn Plan of Casey's, I'd…damn it!_ It'd taken every ounce of Sarah's willpower and training not to let a knife fly in Marilyn's general direction as the latter briefed everyone on Chuck's departure and arrival times, firmly declaring that no one else knew any details of the plans when Abigail had asked about security.

Sarah had presented her impromptu game plan to the others after Marilyn finished. While Chuck was away, she suggested, they should strike on Thursday and Friday during the workday, at the office; she already had a preliminary list of individuals who belonged to the group of infiltrators. The remaining days where Chuck was out of town would be used to deal with any unforeseen complications, of which Sarah stoically predicted there would be few, if any.

Other than a few clarifying questions, Abigail and the three other VPs had accepted her plan wholesale, and applauded Sarah's ability to quickly assimilate the information and come up with such a solid plan. To further the praise, Abigail had pulled her aside after the meeting to commend her focus and preparation: the president was shocked that Sarah had gone through the personnel files already and weeded out the likely suspects.

The unanimous praise, ironically, constituted the source of Sarah's anger. Her "impromptu" plan was so solid because it wasn't impromptu—it'd been hashed out last night after uncovering Marilyn's duplicity. Sarah knew who was Fulcrum in the firm because she'd forced Chuck to go through every single personnel file before they left Casey's, his flashes providing the identification of known Fulcrum agents. And, if they hadn't heard Chuck's travel plans via Marilyn on the restaurant surveillance tape, they'd have absolutely no idea that he was flying out that afternoon.

Unfortunately, anger at everyone else's incompetence was quickly giving way to the wide array of feelings associated with yesterday. Anger was almost preferable. She could deal with anger—it was familiar, its effects certain. The other emotions were unknown. While Sarah was coming to grips with the feelings involved with the part of yesterday that occurred _after_ the locked bedroom door, the feelings associated directly _before_ the locked bedroom door were winning.

The panic continued to rise, exponentially growing as the unwanted feeling permeated her thoughts. It wasn't that she didn't want to get married to Chuck. She did—of that much, she was sure. She just didn't want to get married anytime soon.

…_I'm getting married on Saturday. SATURDAY. Oh. my. God. That's _way_ too soon._

Agent mode nowhere in sight, she was seconds away from a full panic attack—one that would involve thinking about the amount of danger involved with the coming days—when, as if on cue, her cell phone rang. Unique ringtone identifying the caller, the smile that slowly spread across her face dispelled enough of the panic to allow cogent thought. Spinning away from the windows to face her desk, Sarah effortlessly grabbed the device and answered it in one motion.

"I thought we agreed that this wasn't how this worked," her eyes falling to the scribbled Post-it note he'd left on the nightstand, currently positioned discretely on her desk.

"Hey, WHOA!" Chuck sputtered out, his mind racing to catch up. _So much for the planned discussion—looks like we're totally going to have our morning-after discussion first…by phone. _"Sarah, you slept through Ellie's insane spate of knocking around 4am—your vaguely worded note and the locked door freaked her out."

"There was an 'insane spate of knocking'?" she asked with a smirk, the visual easily coming to mind as she leaned back in her chair. _Looks like locking the door was a good idea after all._

"Seriously? There was an _insanely_ insane spate of knocking! I can't believe you slept through it. I think El was seconds away from breaking down the door down. WITH HER MIND, Sarah! She was giving it this scary intense look when I opened it. I don't know, maybe she picked that up from you?"

"Wait, you can't believe I slept through it? I can't believe you _didn't_ sleep through it, after the night we had."

"Wh...I…ju…wa…uh…d…" he stammered for several seconds, voice—and thought—finally returning, the former albeit in a high pitch. "Could you _not_ do that in the middle of the day! God, trying to kill me?"

"Could you _not_ leave a note next time?" she shot back, not missing a beat.

"Would you rather I disap…"

A round of impassioned yelling piping through her iPhone's ear piece precluded the rest of Chuck's response from being delivered. Once things had quieted down again, Chuck explained the sudden commotion.

"Sorry, that was Morgan. He's...not having a good day…" trailing off as he spared a glance in Morgan's direction. The bearded man was still locked in a loud—and losing—battle for his vacation days with Emmett.

She took Morgan's inopportune interruption as a chance to segue back into the staged discussion. "Didn't you ask him to be your best man? How could this be a bad day?"

"No vacation days."

"Really? I wonder how that happened."

"It's one of life's great mysteries," his retort delivered in a perfect deadpan. "But, because of the no-vacation-days thing, I asked John. He said he's got the vacation days here at the store. This is his one-weekend-a-month, so he's checking with his reserve unit now to see if he can drill in San Francisco instead of..."

"DUDE!" Morgan wailed, cutting Chuck off in mid-sentence. Given how loud his wail was, Sarah was willing to bet that, in defeat, the green shirt had wandered over to Chuck to bemoan his misfortune. "How can I not be your best man! This is like…like…"

Merely picturing the exchange on the other end brought another huge smile to Sarah's face: Chuck shushed Morgan before he could complete what was likely to be "a highly inappropriate analogy," assuring him that he would be the best man in the "real," bigger wedding in LA that would follow once Ellie and Awesome were married. The promise prompted a series of detailed queries from Morgan, including mentions of a bachelor party and his other official duties as Chuck's "real" best man.

She was content listening to the two friends go back and forth before Morgan brought up selecting the official reception sandwich type. _No way, I agree with Casey on this one—both of them should be severely beaten if they _ever_ start talking about damn sandwiches-on-a-desert-island again._

"Chuck, speaking of lunch. I got your flight information." That was enough to get him to silence Morgan. "It's today at 4:55."

"Really‼‼?" _I wonder if I sounded truly surprised_, he wondered, craning his head around to look for Casey—he wasn't in sight—while waving his other hand at Morgan to stay quiet.

"Really. Sorry about the short notice, but they just told me."

"Crap, I still have to stop back at Symantec before I go ho..."

An unexpected thump on the shoulder caused Chuck to drop his cell phone in shock, sending the device careening a few feet away across the floor. Glaring behind him at Casey's retreating form, Chuck retrieved his phone, apologizing to the ever-present ballcapped customer it almost struck, and added on to his previous statement after Casey turned to flash him a brief thumbs-up.

"And I think John's in for this weekend? He just tried to dislocate my shoulder, so I think that means he can come."

A clipped knock sounded at Sarah's office door precisely at the mention of dislocated shoulders. _Back to work_, she thought with a small sigh while calling for the person to enter.

"That's good—I've got to run. Call when you land?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"'Ma'am'? Am I your mother?"

"God, after last night, I hope not. That'd be awkward."

She laughed. "I'm hanging up, Chuck."

"A good call. Just like me _calling_ you now to ask about my flight and me _calling_ you later once it actually lan…"

Laughing again while pressing the "End" button, Sarah easily channeled the small amounts of lingering anger and panic into the icy, neutral expression she needed. It was so effective that she indicated for a curious Marilyn to have a seat with only an arched eyebrow and small head nod.

_At least part of this'll be fun. Stage IV starts…now._

With that, she began.

-.-.-.-

Watching Chuck hurry across the courtyard and walk right into the closed front door in his haste, Casey couldn't refrain from pointedly clearing his throat and giving Chuck a sarcastic round of applause. The younger man shot him an annoyed look in return while fiddling with the doorknob, finally opening it to receive a salvo of questions from the elder Bartowski.

Only after the front door to Casa Bartowski had swung shut, silencing Chuck's harried deflections, did Casey open his own front door and step inside. He'd taken the rest of the day off from the Buy More to "pack" and tie up some loose ends before leaving town for the weekend.

In reality, Casey had packed the night before, once he was done chatting with the watcher from last night, Ski Mask. He did have some loose ends to tie up, though.

Simply thinking of last night was enough to put the NSA agent in a foul mood again. Unable to wipe the disgusted look from his face as he strolled into one of the spare bedrooms, Casey gave Ski Mask a withering sneer. The watcher from the previous evening was half collapsed in the far corner, the effects of the sedative beginning to wear off. Gagged, the captive was securely bound to a wall fixture to prevent any movement or possible escape attempts.

Noticing Casey's footfalls, the man struggled to open his eyes. They flew open when he noticed Casey's return. The whimpering and muted yelling began soon after.

"Shut up," Casey growled, smacking the man upside the head for good measure before crouching down to his level. "It looks like you were right: you probably aren't involved with the recent events involving Chuck. I saw your man today at work—Ballcap, right?—and I checked the store's recent security footage. Like you said, you guys have been around for a while, before the trouble started. Looks like I won't be killing you after all."

Ski Mask's eyes fell closed in relief. The sound of a gun cocking prompted those eyes to snap back open, to find Casey resting his gun hand on the wall a few inches above the watcher's head; Casey's free hand massaged his temple.

"Here's my problem, though," he nonchalantly mused, Ski Mask's eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun. "I still don't like you and your friends hanging around. I think you're trouble. So, you have two options. Option #1: I kill you. This option is simple, and really, it's more fun for me—I don't get to shoot people as much as I'd like anymore. Your friends will also be receiving a very real visit from a friend of mine in law enforcement. The LAPD is very fed up with your crew's antics, did you know that?"

Casey paused to let the watcher flail about for a few seconds, the muffled yells becoming louder and more desperate. Reluctant to give up the chance to shoot someone, Casey finally reached down to his pocket to pull out his cell phone before continuing.

"Option #2," he continued, tapping his phone with one finger, "you and your friends play ball. You make a few phone calls for me and do exactly what I tell you to, or else I shoot you. Everyone stays out of prison, and nobody dies, so long as you don't _ever_ renege on our little deal."

Dramatically pausing as the watcher's eyes darted between the gun and the phone, Casey waited what he thought was an appropriate amount of time before finishing.

"So, what's it going to be: option #1," holding his gun up slightly before holding up the cell phone, "or option #2?"

Ski Mask didn't wait for Casey to lower the cell phone, emphatically nodding toward the electronic device.

"Good choice. Time for you to make a call. I'm sure you know the number. Here's what you're going to say."

-.-.-.-

Something didn't feel right.

Crouched behind a stack of crates, Marilyn had decided that much almost immediately. The crates were located inside a derelict-looking building that acted as a chop shop and storage facility for her _de facto_ surveillance. Ill-lit, complements of the disappearing sun, it wasn't the first time Marilyn had been to the building. In fact, she had been here not even three days ago, calming down the watcher who had been in the courtyard when Fulcrum tried to kidnap Chuck on Sunday morning.

It was the first time, however, that the ex-spy felt compelled to draw her gun. Something about the atmosphere inside the building didn't seem right. Sure, she could hear a cacophony of voices a few yards away, words indistinguishable. Laughter sporadically broke up the chatter. The din of a radio was audible amidst the clanging of tools hitting metal. By all indications, it was a normal Wednesday evening.

Still, something didn't feel right.

She was nearly certain that she wasn't overcompensating for her unsettling one-on-one meeting with Walker earlier, either.

Her _very_ unsettling one-on-one meeting.

It wasn't every day that allegations and accusations of large-scale embezzlement came up.

Marilyn allowed herself a moment to recount the meeting. Once brief pleasantries had been exchanged, Walker had calmly noted that the Reed Associates audit that Marilyn had finished the night before brought several startling discrepancies to light. The client's security equipment was of a quality far below what was prescribed in the original security plans, possibly explaining the catastrophic security system malfunction that took place over the weekend.

Monetarily, the difference between the prescribed equipment and actual equipment was sizeable. Marilyn was stunned at the revelation—she couldn't believe she'd missed it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars disappearing into thin air was a problem. A very large problem that implied a firm-wide audit and possible firing.

Walker hadn't told Abigail about the discovery yet, preferring to get a feel for the situation before dropping yet another bombshell. Since she hadn't known with her predecessor, for obvious reasons, Walker had wanted to know if she, Marilyn, believed Retborn capable of such large-scale embezzlement. Since she was the VP of Finance, and therefore very involved with the firm's financial dealings, Walker's implicit question was also clear: if Marilyn had any part in the apparent embezzlement, now was the time to come clean. Otherwise, Walker would be far, far less forgiving in the future.

Marilyn vaguely professed to be unsure about the first question, but vehemently denied the second. Poker face set in stone, Walker revealed nothing about whether she believed Marilyn's answers. But, seeing as she wasn't dead, Marilyn was apparently being given the benefit of the doubt. For now.

The benefit of the doubt would vanish if Walker found out that she and Justin were involved before his death. She had no doubt that she'd be under even more suspicion than she already was.

It was imperative that Walker stay in the dark.

Marilyn had been scheming how to ensure that was the case, no matter the cost, when the new VP dropped the perfect opportunity into her lap. Concluding the embezzlement discussion with a few terse words, Walker had unexpectedly fallen silent. Instead of ending the meeting, she'd hesitantly spoke again after a few false starts. Gone was the CIA's best agent; present was the woman head-over-heels in love with her fiancé.

She had a favor to ask of Marilyn: Could Marilyn cover for her this weekend, if something were to come up?

Puzzled, and not believing her ears, Marilyn had asked why. Sarah haltingly told a condensed version of the story.

The only way the CIA would even consider assisting with Sarah's current situation—Chuck nearly being kidnapped multiple times—was if he was her spouse. Last night, she'd (vaguely) brought up the CIA's terms with Chuck, and he'd agreed that it seemed like their best bet: they'd quietly get married this weekend while he was out of town to prevent his sister from finding out, thereby enabling Sarah to access her former employer's resources. They'd decided to tell as few people as possible, what with the expected bigger wedding down the road, and telling as few people as possible included not telling Abigail, particularly given her previous orders about what Sarah would be doing this weekend.

Once she realized _why_ Sarah was asking for the favor, Marilyn couldn't agree fast enough. The secretive elopement made sense, but truth be told, Walker being out of town all weekend would give her the opportunity to formulate a response to the claims of alleged embezzlement by quickly looking at some other accounts to see if it was a widespread problem.

Marilyn was reeling from the embezzlement bombshell half an hour later as she paced her office. It was then that she'd gotten a call from the locals.

Thinking of the phone call brought her back to the present with a jolt, noticing that the air had become more electrified in the interim. Shaking her head to refocus, she stood, silently vowing to move out of hiding if nothing happened in the next 5 seconds. Proceeding to count, she was already chiding herself for overreacting when her silent count reached the number 4.

The interior of the building suddenly exploded with movement—flashbang grenades went off, small explosive pops sounded, shouts of "LAPD, on the ground!" cut through the din, and the clicking of loaded weapons and the thumping of combat boots soon dominated as the shouting continued. Ducking behind the crates on instinct, Marilyn cautiously peered around them again with a stunned expression once her vision had returned to normal.

There had to be three dozen cops inside. Looking at the various blown-open doors and missing walls, she was thrown further off-kilter when she watched, slack-jawed, as a familiar figure strode into the building.

John Casey.

John Casey had just marched through one of the gaping holes, wearing a flight suit under his bulletproof vest. Gun drawn, but lowered, his eyes swept over the flurry of activity. Satisfied with what he saw, he continued to look over the surrounding area as he changed direction midstep, angling toward the LAPD officer blatantly in charge of the raid.

As suddenly as Casey started walking toward the officer in charge, he stopped just as suddenly.

Marilyn knew why, cursing under her breath as she started to slink down the row of crates, toward her exit.

Casey had just looked right at her. She hadn't ducked back behind the crates fast enough, not anticipating his eyes to jump to her hiding place, and he'd gotten a glimpse of her.

His eyes had narrowed in a heartbeat, gun snapping up to a shooting position before he started to advance on Marilyn's position.

If Casey found her, the trouble she was in with Walker would be irrelevant.

The next row of crates wasn't that far. If she could make it, she stood a chance of getting out of the building without getting caught. With how quickly Casey was closing, though, it looked more and more unlikely.

"Casey?" The summons, belonging to an authoritative female voice, caused the NSA agent's cautious footsteps to pause long enough to provide the extra second Marilyn needed to conceal herself again. She'd no sooner settled before the swishing of an efficiently pivoting body sounded near the opening leading down the first row of crates, undoubtedly looking for threats.

A few seconds later, she heard Casey give a small grunt before his footsteps diminished as he headed, presumably, back toward the person in charge. Marilyn couldn't help but sneak back to her previous position to fall within earshot of the conversation, trying her best to observe the proceedings without being spotted again.

"Rodgers," Casey finally replied to the LAPD officer's earlier beckon, taking up a position to the officer's left side. "Thanks for taking point on this one."

"Hey, least we could do. We've been after these guys for a while," Rodgers responded, nodding towards the locals being efficiently cuffed and led away by members of her team. "Besides, I owe you one for that time you bailed me out in Panama."

"I remember. Consider us even."

"Still in the game, then?" the LAPD officer asked after a beat, stating a fact more than asking a question.

"Not for long—I'm done, now that this one's over with. Put my paperwork in a few hours ago. It's time."

Rodgers turned her head away from her team's actions long enough to give Casey a look.

"It's the longest I've been in one place for a while." The reluctant shrug accompanying his answer was more revealing than his actual response.

"Alright, relax, I won't tell anyone that you're nesting," Rodgers answered an amused tone, shaking hands with Casey despite his growling. "Always a pleasure, Casey."

"Likewise. And I don't nest."

Ignoring him, the LAPD officer shifted to her authoritative officer-in-charge tone to bark out more orders. After one last look around, Casey made his way to the nearest hole in the wall, holstering his gun while looking down at his watch and shedding his vest.

Yet again, Marilyn stood in shock.

This week was turning out to be one for the ages.

Mindful of the LAPD officer's most recent order, she quickly worked towards her exit before the entire building was secured. In her head, she was already composing the email to Tim.

-.-.-.-

Twelve thousand feet in the air, Chuck nervously glanced out the window for the umpteenth time since taking off 40 minutes ago. With the sun nearly gone from the sky, the resulting color was striking.

But, as far as Chuck could see, the sky was also empty.

_Come on, come on, where is he?_, he thought, drumming his fingers off the armrests as he sat back in his seat. Waiting a beat, Chuck turned his head toward the aisle to surreptitiously scrutinize—to the best of his ability—the other passengers. _Not like Fulcrum can take me anywhere. Me, the frickin' Intersect. Just sitting here, in an airplane…that's really really high up…without a handler in sight…and maybe Fulcrum on board. Not freaking out, not freaking out…_

The older man sitting next to Chuck chose that moment to whack Chuck's hand with the handle of his cane, apparently having enough of Chuck's finger drumming. Jumping with a yelp, the former Nerd Herder profusely apologized for both the yelp and general fidgeting before warily scooting to the far side of his seat and looking back out the window again.

_What, did I miss a memo? Was today declared to be "Beat on Chuck" Day? Like any of this is my fault!_

Just then, an F-15C came into view a safe distance away, its altitude higher than that of the civilian airliner. Caning forgotten, and ignoring the glare from his seatmate, Chuck allowed himself a few fist pumps and a small victory dance as the military jet slowed to match the speed of the passenger plane. Wiggling its wings back and forth a few times, it soon sped up and vanished into the rapidly darkening sky.

_About time, Sugar Bear. Phew. _

Landing at San Francisco International without a handler left Chuck more uncomfortable than Fulcrum possibly inside the plane did. With how fast Casey's jet had accelerated away, the major would easily beat Chuck to the city, racking up flight hours all the while, and would have ample time to park his precious jet before getting over to the civilian airport to ride with Chuck to the hotel.

He'd have a handler at the airport. Granted, not the handler he'd like to be there, but he wasn't picky, at this point.

Letting his head loll back onto the headrest, Chuck folded his hands over his chest and let out a relieved sigh. A final thought crossed his mind before drifting off for a quick power nap.

_Stage V complete. Time for the real fun to start._

-.-.-.-

_A/N2: As mentioned in the 2nd A/N for Watcher, ch. 2, NBC says Casey is in the Army. I'm aware that Army pilots aren't generally qualified to fly jets, but if Casey can fly a Stealth fighter (per "Chuck vs. the Helicopter"), we're going to pretend he's qualified to fly an Eagle, too._


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Happy New Year, all._

_I would jump into this without a preamble, but after leaving this story dangling for so long, I owe you all—readers, reviewers, story alerters, and PMers—an explanation. Prepare for a massive author's note. The next paragraph can be skipped without loss of any relevant information, should you—understandably—not want to hear about A Year in the Life of DrMcDuck._

_The short version: The past 12 months have been bad ones at work. _

_The long version: January-March of last year was spent dealing with a massive computer crash. April-May was spent capitalizing on the fixed computer and frantically making up for months of downtime so as to make the end of the project cycle on schedule. June brought a set of unanticipated announcements, among them being: a change to a rolling project schedule instead of cycles (cough no vacation days until Christmas cough), the new project starting up ASAP, and that certain progress had to be made by the end of the year or else we'd all be jobless. June-December was consequently spent making sure I didn't get fired._

_Writing 3-5k words a day for work removed my inclination to write more after hours. I write fanfiction for fun, and when doing so feels like work, that's a problem. I refused to continue writing until I could figure out how to reconcile the need to finish this story with the unfortunate constraints of real life. My initial outline called for writing three more chapters—not tenable, under present circumstances. _

_What I decided to do was spend as much time as I could over one weekend writing one last chapter as if it was a one-shot story. This single chapter would include as many key scenes from the planned three chapters, but would trade off detail and nuance for plot progression and completion. The result of this weekend of writing, questionable as it may be, is below._

_With that, recall that this story takes place through "Chuck vs. the Fat Lady" (2.07). Typos may be more frequent than normal, as I wanted to get this posted before I went to work. I apologize for them, and will read the chapter over a few more times later when I get home. I__talicized sentences, or several italicized words in a row, tend to denote a character's thoughts. Finally, I still don't own _Chuck_. This A/N would be 300 words lighter if I did._

_-.-.-.-_

**Day 16: Saturday**

A black Porsche sliding effortlessly into a vacant curbside metered parking spot wasn't at all unusual for this part of San Francisco.

Upon her emergence, neither was the driver of said Porsche: a blonde-haired woman, smartly dressed in casual attire, sunglasses in place and armed with a steaming Starbucks.

No, the only unusual sight was the man, attired in camouflage, patiently sitting on a bench in front of a corner storefront. An open manila folder was positioned across his lap, and the slam of the driver's side door

"Traffic?" Casey politely inquired, neatly tapping all the papers together while simultaneously closing the folder and rising from the bench. Somewhere nearby, bells were marking the hour—two o'clock.

Stepping up on to the curb, Sarah offered him a tense smile and took a sip of coffee. "Among other things." _Like the work week from hell continuing on in a spectacular fashion_.

That prompted another long swig.

Spending—literally—the entirety of Thursday and Friday rooting out the Fulcrum agents at Ft. Knox had been as demanding as she'd anticipated. The Plan called for her to leave LA the night before. As it was, things hadn't gotten under some modicum of control at Ft. Knox until several hours earlier, postponing her 'clandestine' departure for San Francisco to the early morning.

The two-tone ping of a store's entry chime drew Sarah's attention away from the much-needed source of caffeine and her own ruminations to the sight in front of her. Casey was looking at her expectantly while holding the door open. Tipping her head as a thank you, she walked through the doorway with more confidence than she was feeling into the corner jewelry store. She was in the process of taking a deep centering breath when the door audibly swish-clicked shut.

"Ready?" he immediately asked in a barely audible, yet much more Casey-esque, tone, taking advantage of the otherwise empty store to drop the pretense, if only for a moment.

_As I'll ever be_, she grimly thought, trying to keep the unjustifiable panic at bay with another deep breath. She was about to say as much when another two-tone ping sounded, heralding the entrance of two more customers.

Aware of their potential audience once again, she bought a little time by pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. Taking minute steps further into the store, she answered Casey's question by resuming their previous conversation in as normal of a voice as she could muster. "Where's Chuck?"

Casey stepped purposefully toward one of the display cases parallel to the entrance wall, but slightly off to Sarah's right. "Working lunch." Pulling off his own sunglasses and closing them with an efficient one-handed click-click, he used them to gesture out one of the windows. "Said he'd be done at the top of the hour."

A glance in the indicated direction revealed a small sidewalk bistro with a seating area enclosed by low wrought-iron fencing. Sarah easily spotted Chuck at a table outside with a half dozen other people. She noticed that Casey'd had a similar view from the sidewalk bench.

That fact, coupled with simply seeing him in person again, unharmed, brought more relief than she'd thought it would. Casey noticed the shift in her, and let out a single chuckle that, to anyone else, sounded appropriately amused. Being partners for so long, Sarah instead heard the underlying scoff-grunt and the implied message—something along the lines of, 'like I'd actually let the moron out of my sight.'

In some ways, it was nice to know that Casey was aware that the riskiest part of the entire Plan was still to come. They'd really been lucky up to this point. That luck needed to hold for at least another 24 hours.

Refocused by their exchange, both effortlessly shifted to the job at hand.

Looking in Chuck's direction also conveniently afforded them the excuse to look at the other two customers.

It was Sarah's turn to read Casey's body language, as the overly calm way he hooked his sunglasses into one of the pockets on his ACUs while turning away from the windows meant only one thing.

_Fulcrum. Fantastic. They must be part of the contingent keeping tabs on Chuck._

The clerk decided to emerge from the back of the store just then, offering a polite smile of recognition to Casey. Without being asked, she crossed toward the display case and pulled out a few racks of wedding bands to set on the glass countertop.

"Chaplain's set," Casey suddenly started, surprising Sarah. He tossed the folder on top of the neighboring counter and folded his arms across his chest while sternly nodding toward the rings. "Caught him on base during drill today. He'll be at the hotel at 8. I'm treating him and you guys to dinner after. Also, your appointment at the County Clerk's in half an hour." A curious glance in his direction prompted an uncomfortable squirm before he reluctantly explained. "Wedding license. You both have to be present for it to be issued in California."

_Who would have thought I'd see the day_, she thought with a genuine smirk, draining the rest of her coffee. Sarah stepped up to the counter to give its contents a cursory glance. _John Casey, wedding planner._

"You know," she started with a small chuckle-cough, electing to instead punctuate the phrase with an arched eyebrow in his direction before beginning a more detailed examination of the rings. "I think you missed your calling, John."

Even the promise of two Fulcrum agents pretending to look over engagement rings a few display cases down, now under the careful tutelage of the shop's clerk, wasn't enough to stop Casey from letting out a growl.

"Funny, Walker."

The use of her last name caused Sarah's head to slowly tip up to meet Casey's probing glare. A beat passed.

The usage was on purpose. It was significant.

Sarah could feel the shift into the preplanned conversation that constituted Stage VI of their Grand Plan. With that shift came a fair amount of dread—she'd been trying to formulate the specifics of her side of the exchange for a good portion of the seven-plus-hour drive up the coast. Unsurprisingly, for a multitude of reasons, she'd come up empty.

Giving away nothing, she somehow managed to calmly look back down to scrutinize one ring design that had caught her eye.

Playing his part to a tee, Casey continued to stare for moment longer, crossing his arms even more tightly before speaking in a low, hushed rumble.

"I _know_ you. I know the _life_. That guy over there"—nodding with a jerk in Chuck's direction—"has no idea, and he's become a good friend of mine. You've become a good friend of mine. For both of your sakes, I'm going to ask this once." The NSA agent quickly unfolded his arms to underscore his pending point. "Are you sure about _this_," adding the question mark at the end with a single sharp rap on the glass counter, right next to the set of trays.

_This_. Civilian life. The big wedding. Settling down. Familial obligations. A life of her own choosing.

Something to actually lose.

It squarely hit at every hang-up, misgiving, fear, and source of conflict that'd torn her in half for the past two weeks, making her feel like a secret agent version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for majority of her waking moments.

And here was John Casey, having no idea that he was driving at the root of every serious conversation that Chuck'd been trying to prod her into, unsuccessfully, for the same amount of time.

For a staged conversation, this felt too real. _Why do these all damn these conversations have to involve _feeling_ so much?_

Setting her empty cup down on the counter a bit unsteadily, it teetered from side to side before coming to rest. In the interim, she'd taken to gripping the edge of the counter with her eyes, of their own accord, tightly shut as the magnitude—and intensity—of the implications, the risks, the talks, the _future_ took her aback.

Clenching her jaw a few times, swallowing once, and keeping her head tilted down toward the counter, she quietly answered.

"No." Glancing over quickly, the shock on Casey's face was real.

Truth be told, the answer surprised her, too.

Snapping her head back down again, Sarah continued just as quietly after a shaky breath. "If it were _any_one else, no. But, for him?" She slowly looked back up to face Casey after a few barely perceivable nods, a ferocious seriousness lacing through her every word. "Yeah, absolutely."

In perfect time with her "absolutely," the store's entrance chime pinged. In walked a grinning Chuck. A knowing smirk came and went from Casey's face while neither was looking.

-.-.-.-

The smirk was a long gone memory by the time Casey got back to the hotel room that night around midnight.

After having to give an "impromptu" best man speech, Casey was now trying not to grind his teeth. Unsuccessfully.

The small wedding, held in one of the hotel's nicer event rooms, had gone off without a hitch. Dinner afterwards went fine as well. _Aside from that speech_, he mentally amended while locking the door behind him. _If anyone got a video of that, I will end them._

Upside of that same horrid speech? He no longer had to split the room next door—standard-sized, two beds—with the country's most valuable nitwit. The irregular click-clack of laptop keys from the past three nights would, finally, be a distant memory. Perhaps he'd be less surly about the all-night typing if Bartowski had come up with something actionable regarding the virus, other than the next mutation was likely to occur sometime tomorrow.

Having just said goodnight to the newly married couple in the hallway a moment ago, Casey tossed his dress uniform jacket over the chair he'd positioned near the nightstand. A perfunctory glance around the room while changing into mission clothes confirmed that it was as he had left it before the wedding. No one had snooped around in the interim.

Snagging his gun off the hallway credenza, the NSA agent moved back toward the nightstand and cocked an ear.

He didn't hear any commotion next door yet. Stage VII called for all sorts of commotion. Commotion this early would be indicative of a Fulcrum ambush, and Stage VII did _not_ call for that particular type of commotion.

A Fulcrum attack once Chuck and Sarah were inside the adjacent room, though, was called for. Team Chuck was ready for it—anticipating and encouraging it, even, using the surveillance and Marilyn's duplicity to feed information about their location and plans to an unsuspecting Fulcrum.

Listening carefully one more time, Casey snagged the ice bucket off the credenza and headed for the door.

Stage VII would also involve copious amounts of ice.

-.-.-.-

**Day 17: Sunday**

What Sarah remembered about the previous night was a surprising amount of restraint. Having been apart for days—and it being their wedding night—she had envisioned having to fight with her feelings tooth and nail to focus on the job at hand.

Judging by Chuck's worried look once they'd gotten inside, his worries had paralleled her own.

But now, in the morning light, those worries were all for naug…

_Wait._

It was morning.

That wasn't right.

More of last night came back to her. Earlier in the week, she and Casey had agreed that, if they were in Fulcrum's position, they'd strike on the targets' wedding night. The former agent would be "distracted," and both targets would be vulnerable and otherwise occupied. Hence, restraint; Stage VII personified. The occupants of the room needed to put on enough of a show to induce the attack, but not enough to become defenseless.

What she never liked about this part of the plan was using Chuck as bait. It had serious risks, and 10 million things could go wrong.

However, Fulcrum didn't bite. They never showed up. Casey hadn't needed to come crashing through the connecting doors for a rescue.

Their supply of restraint also hadn't been limitless.

Eyes snapping open to take in the subdued light peaking under the edges of the comforter, she was struck by one immutable fact.

Something didn't feel right.

Muscles tensed automatically in reaction, and she shifted toward the open side of the bed. Her movements caused Chuck to stir. Sparing a small smile in his direction as he started to restlessly shift and wake up, she

"You're here." It came out more uncertain than she wanted. Her instincts were starting to scream louder with each passing moment.

"Of course I'm here," he answered groggily, opening and closing his eyes individually and then in tandem as he turned on his side and squinted to focus on her. "Where else would I be?"

He took one look at her expression and caught up. Quickly.

Sliding one hand toward her throwing knives, Sarah folded the comforter down to gain her first look at the sun-bathed room.

Three Fulcrum agents were present.

Two sat on the long edge of the other bed. The third sat in the desk chair, alternating between reading a pamphlet on San Francisco's many tourist attractions and checking his watch for the time.

Desk-sitter noticed the movement.

"You'll forgive the early intrusion. We would have been here sooner, but we didn't find out that you were both going to be in town until a few hours ago."

She didn't have to put on an act. The blood was draining from her face at a prestigious rate as one of the agents on the neighboring bed motioned for their hands to be made visible, sooner rather than later.

_We planned for everything except an incompetent enemy. And incredibly wicked case of déjà vu._

-.-.-.-

Fortunately, clothing materialized in the process of being rousted.

Chuck was now sitting on the long edge of the vacant bed, sandwiched between the two Fulcrum agents. Sarah sat in a similar position on their bed. Both faced inward toward the shared nightstand.

Oddly, he was very thankful for the clothing.

_Really, _he thought, giving himself a mental head shake, _this is __not__ our biggest problem right now. Focus!_

If he had to hazard a guess, he'd say that the guns probably took top honors right now. The gun _pointing_, specifically. The agent on the left had a gun pointed at his head. The agent on the right had a gun pointed at Sarah's. While his head snapped around the room, taking in the details, Sarah's gaze hadn't left Desk sitter yet.

Maybe she was debating the same point he was—_Is the dearth of gun pointing from Desk-sitter a good or bad thing?_ At the moment, the un-gun pointing agent was ambling around the room. Chuck was still internally debating this point when the agent in question began to speak.

"Before we begin, I'd like to make it clear that your friend next door is otherwise detained." Having ambled over to the connecting door, the deadbolt clicked into place a startling amount of finality. "Counting on his assistance when formulating your answer would therefore be unwise."

Chuck's eyes went wide and brain went into overdrive. _No gun pointing equals BAD, because he knows he has the advantage. _Aside from the continued color—or lack thereof—in her face, Sarah didn't react to the news. At least to the untrained eye. Chuck noticed her eyes flicker in his direction once in reassurance, a movement so fast that he wondered if he had imagined it.

Desk-sitter began slowly walking back toward the beds, leaving little doubt as to whom he was addressing due to his unwavering focus on the bed with one occupant only.

"Now, on to business. I won't insult your intelligence—you know what it is that we want. You have 5 seconds to agree to our conditions, or else…"

Once the familiar sentence had started, her stomach had taken up residence somewhere near her knees.

With the deliberate glance at Chuck, time stopped. Her pulse roared in her ears, inducing a flash of fierce ringing that only dissipated once time started back up again.

One thing was clear. She was getting him out of this. Period.

"Five…"

The nightstand's lamp was wall mounted, removing a possible weapon. Her throwing knives were under the pillow on the far side of the bed, and there sure as hell was not a Manitoba-sized knife under the near-side pillow. Without a distraction, there was no way she'd be able to stretch over to grab one without getting Chuck shot.

"…four..."

She risked a glance in Chuck's direction—he was looking back at her with a barely contained amount of panic.

Desk-sitter's cell phone, holstered on his belt, rang, interrupting their moment as both heads snapped toward the sound. The count continued unbidden.

"…three..."

Desk-sitter reached the end of the beds and angled himself toward Sarah. Doing so put his cell phone close enough to Chuck for the caller ID display to be readable.

The Intersect knew the incoming phone number.

Caught off guard, Chuck did his best to hide the flash with an amalgamation of an oncoming-sneeze and a oooh-sour-sour-sour expression. He succeeded in keeping his eyes from going wide, but once the information from the flash subsided, and all the pieces fell into place, they did so anyways.

_I know what the virus is going try to do! Oh, not good not good not good not good…_

With a sudden resurgence of determination, he clenched his jaw and let his eyes dart furiously around the room, trying to find them a way out of this mess.

"…two…"

Sarah's silent calculation of angles, reaction times, and acceptable injuries was derailed the moment she caught the flash. From the look that shot across Chuck's face, she knew he'd figured something out. Quickly redoubling her efforts, the cocking of a gun registered somewhere else in her mind, as did the shifting of a mattress as the shooter set his stance.

Unexpectedly at the shift of the mattress, Chuck's shoulders tensed and relaxed. She risked one last quick glance in his direction before subtly positioning herself for her strike.

She was taken aback by the earnest, yet intense, expression he was fighting to hold in. Studying the wall to his right as surreptitiously as possible, his eyes slid toward her once, the message clear.

_He's got an idea._

The symmetry of their actions and motivations struck her with stunning alacrity and clarity.

She was also struck by the need to stop him from doing _anything_ stupid.

"…one…"

Slowly swallowing, she deliberately looked at him so he could see the truth in the statement.

"You know I love you, right?" Her voice had started off steady, but had hitched halfway through.

His eyes immediately flew wide and ceased their last-second check around the room, locking on to hers. Shock was immediate. The grin was slower to form—as if the gravity of the words necessitated longer to process than normal words—but once it did, it was radiant. She could feel the start of a reciprocal grin spreading across her face, and in that beat, she noticed a twitch of hesitation from the man on Chuck's left.

It was the break she needed, and she took it.

In the same span of time—Chuck (being Chuck) saw what she was about to do and scrambled to preempt her.

They ended up moving simultaneously, a hair's breadth before "zero."

Gunshots and chaos ensued.

-.-.-.-

Casey was just beginning to wake up when the sound of a nearby door opening and swooshing shut brought him fully out of dreamland.

He then discovered that his hands and feet were bound. Several shelves of canned food and bottled water spanned the entirety of his entire field of vision.

_What the _hell_?_

Coughing once—everything seemed have a fine coating of dust—Casey tensed once to test the strength of the ropes. He was surprised to find them quickly slackening, and shook them off without further pretense.

"Am I the only one that finds it funny that this is the emergency disaster supply locker?" asked a voice Casey knew all too well.

"Disaster," retorted deceptively calm female voice, "as in what almost just happened in our hotel room? Or emergency, as in what we have now?"

Rolling over wordlessly, Casey found a slightly worse-for-wear Bartowski handing back a knife to a full-on-agent-mode Walker.

_I don't even want to know_, Casey thought as he climbed to his feet and methodically brushed himself off as the exchange continued.

"Put 'averted' in front of 'disaster,' and then yes, that's what _did _just happen in our room."

It earned the former Herder a small scoff, but a more neutral eye roll from his freshly minted wife as she handed Casey a backup piece.

"Oh, come on!" Chuck continued while Casey got squared away. "There's a reason I steered us _away_ from that bed last night! I didn't want to get gorilla-squished by Johnny over here in case he had to come BARRELLING through that wall to save us!"

"Watch it, Bartowski," Casey growled. Now he knew exactly how their morning had gone, work-wise. Tilting his head once to indicate the windowless closet no larger than the Cage at the Buy More, he moved on to the more pressing issue. "What the hell happened? What emergency?"

Sarah answered his first question with a poorly concealed ire as Chuck poked around the various boxes of supplies. "Let's just say that our friends are less efficient than we thought."

Casey scowled at the cryptic answer.

"Fine," she elaborated, taking more care to keep her voice down. "They took down the wrong room number. They thought our room was yours."

"Idiots."

Squinting at a case of fire extinguishers, Chuck absently nodded his agreement with Casey's statement.

"The emergency is that we've got to move," Sarah continued. "This meeting starts in less than an hour. The Intersect flashed and Chuck got a line on the virus."

"Oh, _did_ he now?" Grabbing the back of his asset's shirt to pull him out of his curious poking and back into the conversation, Casey couldn't help but smirk at the former's startled yelp. His smirk grew at Walker's less-than-amused glare. "Fine. The virus in 15 seconds. Start talking."

With the look he was getting from Casey, Chuck didn't need to be told twice. He flew.

"They're going to try to transmit and embed subliminal behavior triggers. Kind of a mix between _The Manchurian Candidate_ and _Serenity_. When triggered, you'd spew your _own_ knowledge or engage in a particular behavior. That's why the code was so weird. The picture was acting as a placeholder for the sublimina..."

Casey cut him off at exactly 15 seconds with an immediate follow-up. "Implications?"

"Uh, if it works? And the right people see it? Spewing secrets at the drop of a hat, I guess. If the code doesn't work…I don't know. I suppose it could be harmless, like it could bounce right off people..."

"…or it could fry people's brains," Casey interrupted again. "Got it. You can tell Beckman the flash particulars and all the technical mumbo-jumbo later. Not important for right now."

He swore the words "SERIOUS NATIONAL SECURITY RISK" were hovering above their heads, styled in large flashing neon.

Taking a moment to process, the NSA agent quickly moved on. "Plan?"

Sarah began to answer, but the sound of footsteps outside the door immediately silenced all the occupants of the remote closet. Casey and Sarah exchanged a meaningful look and prepared to strike as the footfalls came closer. As suddenly as the footfalls started, however, they stopped. The jangling of keys took their place. A muttered, "Damn it, wrong set of keys" was audible through the door before the footsteps receded.

Some well-defined, but unmentioned, amount of time was parceled out silently. Once it passed, the coast seemingly clear, the agents flew into motion. While Casey dragged one of the ladders to the center of the room, Sarah grabbed a fire ax from one of the wall-mounted racks and cleanly broke off the inside door handle with a well-placed blow.

"We have a plan?" Chuck asked nervously, trying to restart the previous line of discussion. "Because this meeting of theirs starts in a few minutes in a conference room on the other side of the hotel, and if the mutation is going to occur during or near this meeting…"

"I know, Chuck. We're improvising. Sort of." Sarah pointed up at the ceiling. "Air vent for now. Casey and I'll work out the details as we go."

Both boys unwittingly cringed at the thought of maneuvering in ventilation ducts again.

Blowing a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, Sarah balanced the ax across her left shoulder. With her right hand planted on her hip, it brooked little room for argument.

"Either of you have a better idea?"

A beat passed.

Casey scooting up the ladder with a surprising amount of dexterity to rip off the vent covering served as his answer. Before he hoisted himself all the way into the vent, he pointed a finger at Chuck.

"Hack the security feeds. Make sure none of last night or this makes it on there. And figure out a way to muck up your techno-buddies so that they can't mutate the whatever-the-hell."

With that, Casey disappeared into the ceiling.

"…uhhh, that's actually going to be a little difficult, big guy. I don't know if I ca…"

Unexpectedly, Casey poked his head back out of the opening to growl at Chuck with all the venom that he'd been unable to use as of late. "_Just_ do it, moron."

Raising his hands in exasperation, he turned to Sarah for support. What he got was a sympathetic smile and peck on the cheek before being steered gently toward the ladder.

"Sorry, but I agree on the video. Just do your best. We're running out of options."

Even more exasperated, Chuck nonetheless checked for his iPhone before climbing up the rungs and responding.

"Out of curiosity, _dear_, what are your thoughts on your husband becoming such a persistent law-breaker and miracle-worker? Promise to come visit me in prison?"

"Promise," she answered deadpan. "I'll even consider bringing Morgan to see you once and a while."

-.-.-.-

All of the secretive alphabet agencies—his NSA included—were very much involved with the aftermath of the incident in San Francisco. How this conflagration managed to erupt, he still wasn't sure. Details continued to be scarce, other than this was a Big Deal. It was so Big that he had the distinct pleasure of being called in to supervise the dozens of minions reviewing every minute of security footage from the hotel. On the weekend. During his West Coast vacation, no less.

It ended up being a fortuitous coincidence.

Quietly walking behind the technicians, the video on one of the tech's monitors gave Tim pause.

Thoughtfully, Tim fished for his Blackberry. He quickly reread the last few sentences of Marilyn's most recent email

…_especially after the raid on Wednesday night, everything that I'm seeing and hearing suggests that Walker and Casey both being in LA is a coincidence, and I'm hearing it from multiple sources. I don't know how much more conclusive the evidence could get. While you, Justin, and I go way back, I'm on thin ice at work with the embezzlement scandal. Continuing surveillance and being found out isn't worth the risk, and I'm pulling it indefinitely._

_Let me know when you're in town next. It was good to see you._

_Best,_

_Marilyn_

Tim looked back at the monitor that'd caught his eye.

The segment playing was from early Sunday morning, before the incident occurred. It was of Walker and Bartowski having lunch in the hotel's restaurant—arguing over something of little consequence, judging by the amount of laughing interspersed throughout.

When John Casey entered several minutes later, also all grins, Tim looked down and started typing.

By the time his reply had trickled through cyberspace and reached its intended destination, the NSA agent had already pocketed his phone and resumed walking his rounds behind the technicians.

_Marilyn,_

_You were right—it has to be seen to be believed. Consider me convinced. I agree with your conclusion. I'll tell the others that it's a coincidence. In just being around Walker at work, if you happen anything otherwise, though, let me know._

_All the best,_

_Tim _

-.-.-.-END-.-.-.-

_A/N2: A very large thanks to all that decided to hang in there and push for an end to this story. In writing it the way I did, I feel like I'm committing some great injustice because of how much so many of you seemed to enjoy it, and had high expectations as a result. For that I do apologize, but at the end of the day, it does confirm one thing for sure: you are all, truly, awesome. Thank you again._


End file.
